DISTINCTIVE 

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THE   DISTINCTIVE 
IDEAS  OF   JESUS 


Charles  Carroll  Albertson 

MinisUr  of  the  Lafayette  Avenue 
Presbyterian  Church,  Brooklyn,  N.Y, 


Philadelphia 

The  Westminster  Press 

JQ14 


Copyright,  1914, 
Bv  F.  M.  Braselmann 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preview    ' ^ 

CHAPTER 

I.  The   Seeking   God 23 

II.  Man's  Vast  Value 37 

III.  A  New  and  Living  Way  to  God 51 

IV.  New  Life  from  God 67 

V.  An   Efficient  Motive 93 

VI.  The  Unbroken  Continuity  of  Life 109 

VII.  The  Distinctive  Personality  of  Jesus 125 

Bibliography   ^^^ 


PREVIEW 


HEATHENISM  gave  us  a  seeking  religion;  Ju- 
daism a  hoping  religion,  but  Christianity  is  the 
realization  of  what  heathenism  sought  and  Judaism 
hoped  for. — Luthardt, 

A  mere  Plato,  theorizing  about  life,  a  Seneca,  full  of 
moral  apothegTos,  Jesus  never  was,  nor  could  be.  He 
has  wrought  a  revolution  in  the  moral  and  intellectual 
life  of  mankind.  0  patient  Jesus,  touching  us  with  Thy 
strong,  strange,  quiet,  loving  strokes,  calming  our  hearts, 
nerving  and  girding  us  for  duty,  no  time  or  distance 
separates  from  Thee.  We  see  Thee,  hear  Thee,  feel  Thee 
still ! — Charles  McTyeire  Bishop. 

But,  irrespective  of  the  miracle-working  of  Jesus,  His 
power  is  altogether  an  unparalleled  fact  in  history.  A 
new  era  dates  from  His  birth.  His  coming,  as  Doctor 
Sears  has  well  said,  was  a  new  influx  of  power.  Jesus 
seems  to  concentrate  in  His  own  person  the  great  con- 
structive forces  of  religion.  ...  It  was  His  wonderful 
work  to  create  in  the  Roman  Empire  a  new  faith,  a  new 
hope  and  a  new  joy.  The  belief  in  immortality  became 
through  Him  m  Judea  what  it  had  never  been  in  Athens 
or  Rome,  a  living,  working  faith,  which  transformed  the 
earth  and  transfigured  death.  .  .  . 

The  unexampled  power  of  Jesus  was  creative,  like- 
wise, of  a  new  humanity.  It  poured  its  fresh,  renewing 
streams  through  all  the  channels  of  social  life.  Modern 
society  as  well  as  modern  history  dates  from  the  advent 
of  Christ.  ...  It  was  the  peculiar  power  of  the  de- 
spised Nazarine  to  call  forth,  by  a  mighty  voice,  a  new 
civilization  from  the  grave  of  the  old.  It  inay  be  said 
that  philosophy  rolled  away  the  stone,  but  to  restore  life 
was  the  miracle  wrought  by  Christianity. — Newman 
Smith,  Old  Faiths  in  New  Light,  2d  ed.,  pp.  210,  211, 
215. 


PREVIEW 

CHEISTIANITY  has  in  it  much  that  is 
common  to  other  faiths.  The  discov- 
ery of  the  common  ground  upon  which  we, 
as  Christians,  may  meet  Jews,  Confucians, 
Buddhists  and  Mohammedans  is  a  very 
essential  part  of  the  ministry  of  the  modern 
missionary.  Jesus  did  not  repudiate  the 
teachings  of  those  who  had  preceded  Him, 
save  as  He  believed  them  to  misrepresent  the 
Father  and  to  burden  needlessly  the  sons  of 
men.  Nor  did  He  ever  intimate  the  worth- 
lessness  of  the  doctrines  of  those  who  should 
come  after  Him.  He  fulfilled  the  truths  of 
Judaism ;  that  is  to  say,  He  filled  them  full, 
made  up  what  was  lacking  in  them.  So, 
Christianity  is  Judaism  plus.  It  is  Confu- 
cianism plus — plus  very  much.  It  is  Bud- 
dhism plus.  Whatever  in  these  systems  is 
grotesque  or  puerile,  Christianity  is  minus 
that.  And  Christianity  is  plus  by  so  much 
as  it  makes  plain  what  they  make  vague, 

[9] 


y 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

makes  sure  wliat  they  leave  in  doubt,  renders 
vital  what  they  impose  as  merely  mechanical 
or  imitative,  or  what  they  leave  powerless 
and  dead. 

Christianity  is  not  -unique  in  holding  ai  doc- 
trine of  sin.  That  man  needs  to  be  rescued 
from  error  in  thought  and  practice  is  one  of 
the  postulates  of  every  great  faith.  Chris- 
tianity is  not  peculiar  in  that  it  teaches  a  doc- 
trine of  salvation.  Every  other  religion  has 
its  corresponding  word.  Christianity  is  not 
alone  in  its  teaching  of  a  future  existence. 
That  idea  is  also  present  in  some  form  in 
other  religions.  There  is  a  Christian  code  of 
morality,  but  Christianity  differs  from  other 
faiths  more  in  its  dynamics  than  in  its  ethics. 
That  missionary  was  both  truthful  and  wise 
who  said  to  a  Confucian,  *^You  need  the 
power  of  Christ  to  enable  you  to  obey  Con- 
fucius.'' 

Count  Okuma,  one  of  Japan  ^s  keenest 
statesmen,  declared  in  an  address  at  the 
celebration  of  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the 
founding   of   Christian   missions   in   Japan: 

[10] 


PREVIEW 


^^The  sages  of  Japan  and  China  have  taught 
many  excellent  truths  in  regard  to  morality, 
but  they  have  too  much  neglected  the  spirit- 
ual ;  and  no  nation  which  neglects  the  spirit- 
ual can  permanently  prosper.  Modern 
civilization  has  its  rise  in  the  teachings  of 
the  Sage  of  Judea,  in  Whom  alone  is  found 
the  dynamic  of  moral  progress/' 

But  there  are  other  ideas  which  are  the 
distinctive  fruit  of  the  Christian  Gospel. 
They  exist,  if  at  all  in  other  systems,  indefi- 
nitely. If  other  faiths  contain  them,  they  are 
in  solution.  In  Christianity  they  are  defined, 
precipitated.  They  are  the  radical  elements 
of  our  faith— radical  in  the  sense  that  they 
are  at  the  root  of  the  system.  They  are  char- 
acteristically Christian ;  that  is,  Christianity 
has  the  qualities  it  has  because  of  these  doc- 
trines. Without  these  it  could  not  be  what 
it  is. 

In  at  least  six  great  points  Christianity  is 
distinctive.  In  an  age  when  indifference  some- 
times calls  itself  liberality — and  when  in- 
valid thinking  is  often  mistaken  for  tolerance, 

[11] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

it  is  easy  to  fall  into  an  attitude  tliat  views 
Christianity  as  merely  one  of  ^^the  world's 
great  altar  stairs  that  slope  through  dark- 
ness up  to  God"*;  an  attitude  from  which  Je- 
sus appears  simply  one  among  humanity's 
saviours,  a  sort  of  superior  Socrates,  and  not 
greatly  to  be  preferred  to  Zoroaster. 

The  study  of  comparative  religions  is  vastly 
enlightening.  A  fair  knowledge  of  all  the  re- 
ligious systems  which  have  obtained  among 
the  nations  enables  the  student  to  set  aside 
for  a  season  everything  common  to  Christi- 
anity and  other  faiths.  After  he  has  done  this, 
there  will  be  a  Christian  residuum,  a  group 
of  ideas  belonging  peculiarly  to  that  religion 
which  is  based  upon  the  person,  words  and 
works  of  Jesus.  It  is  not  claimed  that  there 
are  no  traces  of  these  in  other  systems,  but 
that,  in  Christianity,  they  are  not  merely 
contained  but  developed.  They  are  among 
the  essentials,  and  not  the  incidentals.  They 
are  not  merely  ornamental,  but  funda- 
mental. 

■J 

First  among  these  ideas  is  that  of  God  seek- 

[12] 


PREVIEW 


ing  the  lost.  The  second  has  to  do  with  the 
value  of  that  which  is  lost.  The  third  pre- 
sents a  method  by  which  the  lost  may  be  re- 
stored. The  fourth  offers  a  new  quality  of 
spiritual  life  to  the  returned  prodigal.  The 
fifth  furnishes  the  lost,  who  has  been  restored 
and  reborn,  with  a  motive  by  which  he  may 
prove  himself  worthy  the  utmost  effort  of 
God  to  save  him.  The  sixth  surveys  the  life 
of  man,  lost  in  sin,  restored,  reborn  and  re- 
furnished with  moral  power,  fitted  for  im- 
mortal fellowship  with  God.  These,  then,  are 
the  distinctive  doctrines  of  Christianity — 
God's  Solicitous  Fatherhood,  Humanity's 
Eternal  Value,  Jesus  Christ's  Mediatorial 
Ministry,  the  New  Birth  of  Manhood,  Love 
as  the  Law  of  the  New  Man,  and  the  Unbroken 
Continuity  of  Life. 

That  these  ideas  are  set  forth  in  the  New 
Testament  as  in  no  other  sacred  book  needs 
no  argument,  and  proof  cannot  fairly  be  de- 
manded. That  each  of  them  in  itself  is  of 
incalculable  value  to  the  race,  it  is  needless 
to  afi&rm.    But  that  all  of  them  are  the  ideas 

[13] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

of  Jesus,  that  He  plainly  stated  and  often  re- 
peated them  in  various  terms,  is  a  fact  of 
which  we  need  to  be  reminded. 

These  studies,  popular  rather  than  aca- 
demic though  they  are,  may  serve  to  point  out 
that,  whatever  may  have  been  added  to  the 
original  content,  of  the  Gospel  by  elaboration 
at  the  hands  of  those  wha  sought  to  interpret 
Jesus'  message  and  meaning  to  the  world, 
the  ideas  just  named  have  not  been  superim- 
posed upon  Jesus'  teachings.  They  are  a 
part  of  them,  if  indeed  they  do  not  form  the 
very  substance  of  them.  The  apostles  hold 
them — Paul,  John,  Peter,  James,  the  un- 
known author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
— ^but  they  do  not  pretend  to  have  originated 
them.  They  build  upon  these  ideas,  and  con- 
fess that  Another  had  already  laid  the  foun- 
dation. And  He  had.  If  the  Epistles  had 
never  been  written,  or  if  they  had  been  lost 
amidst  the  ruins  of  that  Eastern  world  to 
which  they  were  first  given,  we  would  still  be 
able  to  derive  these  distinctive  ideas  from 
the  four  Gospels.     They  are  the  bequest  of 

[14] 


PREVIEW 


Jesus  to  the  world,  and  what  they  have  meant 
to  the  world  is  incalculable. 

Phillips  Brooks  in  his  Bohlen  lectures  on 
**The  Influence  of  Jesus/'  and  Doctor  Kich- 
ard  S.  Storrs  in  his  Ely  lectures  on  *^The 
Divine  Origin  of  Christianity  Indicated  by  Its 
Historical  Effects,''  make  plain  in  what  de- 
gree humanity  is  indebted  to  Jesus  for  its 
loftiest  inspirations.  In  Glover's  *^ Conflict 
of  Keligions  in  the  Early  Koman  Empire," 
the  author  reminds  us  that  it  was  a  new  thing 
when  religion,  in  the  name  of  truth,  and  for 
the  love  of  God,  abolished  the  connection  of 
the  human  mind  with  a  trivial  past;  when 
Jesus  cut  away  at  once  every  vestige  of  the 
primitive  and  every  savage  survival — all 
natural  growths  perhaps,  and  helpful,  too,  to 
primitive  man  and  to  the  savage,  but  con- 
fusing to  men  on  a  higher  plane — set  religion 
free  from  all  taboos  and  rituals,  and  became 
the  Vindicator  and  Exponent  of  eternal  reali- 
ties. It  is  such  a  Man  as  this,  he  says,  who 
liberates  mankind. 

To  what  extent  these  ideals  of  Jesus  have 

[15] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

molded  or  modified  the  thought  of  humanity, 
entered  into  the  very  unconscious  cerebra- 
tion of  the  modem  man,  may  be  imagined  if 
not  measured  when  we  reflect  how  largely 
our  lives  have  been  enriched  by  such  ideas 
as  liberty,  philanthropy,  democracy  and  im- 
mortality. 

It  is  no  great  step  from  the  apprehension 
of  the  seeking  God  to  the  impulse  which  leads 
one  who  has  been  found — and  who,  in  Jesus, 
finds  himself — to  seek  his  still  wandering  fel- 
low man.  It  inevitably  follows,  when  the 
man  is  supplied  with  an  efficient  motive.  In 
the  recognition  of  the  supreme  worth  of  man, 
the  indefeasible  dignity  of  the  soul,  lies  the 
most  fertile  source  of  social  uplift.  That  the 
basis  of  morality  is  buttressed  by  faith  in  the 
superiority  of  the  individual  to  death  is 
hardly  to  be  doubted. 

The  author  does  not  undertake  to  discuss 
the  influence  of  the  distinctive  ideas  of  Jesus. 
He  merely  suggests  that  our  interest  in  these 
ideas  is  much  more  than  theological.  Many  a 
movement  called  modern  has  its  roots  in  an- 

[16] 


PREVIEW 


cient  soil,  and  it  were  well  for  us  not  to  lose 
sight  of  the  Sower  who  scattered  with  lavish 
hand  in  Judea  the  seeds  of  an  age-long  and 
world-wide  harvest — a  harvest  the  world  is 
only  just  beginning  to  reap. 


[17] 


THE  SEEKING  GOD 


PROPHETS,  and  even  men  of  genius,  can  by  their 
message  bring  us  near  to  God,  but  they  cannot  per- 
manently keep  us  there,  or  cure  that  rebound  and  rever- 
sion in  which  our  souls  gravitate  to  eai'th  and  cleave  to 
the  dust.  Nothing  can,  until  we  are  quickened  by  that 
unique,  living  and  eternal  Word  wherein  God  comes  near 
to  us  in  very  presence  and  act,  and  not  in  message  alone. 
He  comes  near  and  makes  us  His  own.  Others  can  im- 
press us  with  God;  in  Christ  God  creates  us  anew. 
Others  by  their  very  purity  may  make  us  doubt  whether 
we  have  any  right  to  approach  a  holy  God ;  but  in  Christ 
such  misgivings  are  submerged  in  the  discovery  that  He 
has  taken  the  matter  out  of  our  hands  into  His  own,  and 
Himself  has  come  to  us  and  made  us  His  forever.  .  .  . 
God  did  not  send,  but  came. — P.  T.  Forsyth,  The  Per- 
son and  Place  of  Jesvs  Christ j  pp.  57,  58. 


THE  SEEKING  GOD 

FROM  Genesis  to  Eevelation  the  Bible  is 
full  of  God.  It  is  preeminently  God's 
book.  Yet  there  is  in  it  from  first  to  last  no 
attempt  to  prove  that  there  is  a  God.  The 
writers  of  the  various  documents  which  con- 
stitute the  Bible  never  argue  the  question. 
They  boldly  assume  that  God  is,  and  that  He 
is  a  Person.  The  volume  commences  with 
the  simple  words,  ^^In  the  beginning  God." 
The  author  acts  upon  the  supposition  that 
what  all  religions  admit  needs  no  proof. 
Subsequent  writers  proceed  to  portray  the 
character  of  God  as  exhibited  in  His  dealings 
with  nations  and  men.  They  represent  Him 
as  one,  not  many ;  as  spiritual,  not  material ; 
as  just  and  wise  and  righteous.  All  of  this 
concerns  us  as  nothing  else  can.  We  are 
eager  to  know  the  nature  of  that  Force  which 
works  in  all  things  and  is,  as  we  believe,  at 

[23] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

tlie  heart  of  the  universe.  Force  is,  in  itself, 
a  cold  and  comfortless  word.  The  Hebrew 
prophets  say  this  Force  is  personal,  holy, 
wise,  benevolent — which  is  the  best  the  He- 
brew prophets  can  do  for  us.  But  that  is 
much.  To  understand  how  much  it  is,  we  have 
only  to  remember  that  pagan  conceptions  of 
God  never  approached  the  idea  of  benevolent 
kindness,  much  less  of  holiness.  So  the  He- 
brew mind  has  made  an  incalculable  contribu- 
tion to  human  knowledge. 

But  the  supreme  revelation  was  yet  to  come. 
In  the  fullness  of  time,  in  the  fullness  of 
preparation,  expectancy  and  need,  Jesus  came 
to  make  up  what  was  lacking  in  our  view  of 
God.  He  had  much  to  say  about  God — ^more 
than  about  any  other  subject.  He  called  God 
a  Father:  ^^I  ascend  unto  my  Father,  and 
your  Father.^' 

There  are  fathers  and  fathers.  Jesus  pic- 
tures God  as  a  compassionate  Father.  Such 
is  the  teaching  of  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal. 
Not  the  son,  but  the  father,  is  the  central 
figure  of  that  matchless  picture.     Then  there 

[24] 


THE  SEEKING   GOD 


is  the  parable  of  the  Lost  Sheep.  Not  the 
sheep,  but  the  shepherd,  is  the  chief  char- 
acter of  that  touching  drama.  Put  these  two 
parables  into  one,  and  we  have  God  repre- 
sented not  only  as  going  out  to  meet  the  lost 
one,  but  going  into  the  mountains  of  the  far 
country  and  seeking  him  with  anxious  heart 
and  aching  arms.  This  is  Jesus'  idea  of  God. 
The  last,  the  least,  the  lost,  are  ever  Jesus' 
favorite  words.  *^The  last  shall  be  first." 
^^  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of 
the  least  of  these  my  brethren.''  ^^The  Son 
of  man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which 
was  lost." 

And  Jesus  gives  us  to  understand  that  not 
only  does  the  Father  seek  the  lost,  but  that, 
in  Himself,  God,  veiled  in  flesh,  is  seeking 
man.  Thus,  He  is  somewhat  more  than  a  rep- 
resentative, a  messenger,  of  God — He  is  God, 
revealing  in  every  step  of  His  life,  in  every 
miracle  of  healing  and  in  every  parable  of 
truth,  the  Father's  mind  and  heart.  So,  Je- 
sus' coming  was  a  part  of  God's  seeking. 

In  order  to  save  the  lost,  the  heart  of  the 

[25] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

Eternal  must  be  wonderfully  kind.  And  to 
make  saints  out  of  such  unpromising  material 
as  human  clay  with  all  its  faults  and  flaws, 
its  incapacities  and  corruptions,  challenges 
the  powers  of  the  Omnipotent.  This  is  the 
purpose  of  the  Gospel — to  transform  the  sons 
of  men,  with  all  their  defilement,  into  kings 
of  an  immovable  kingdom  and  priests  of  an 
unending  priesthood. 

The  pearl-diver  gropes  in  darkness  and 
dangers  unimaginable  to  bring  the  precious 
jewel  up  from  ocean  depths.  The  genius  of 
a  Washington  converts  a  host  of  undisciplined 
troops  into  an  effective  army.  A  young  ar- 
tist, before  whose  eyes  a  heavenly  vision 
shone,  constructs  a  cathedral  window  of  rare 
beauty  out  of  the  discarded  fragments  left 
by  other  workmen.  Invisible  forces  of  the 
atmosphere  take  up  the  moisture  from  slimy 
ponds  and  sluggish  streams  and  salty  seas, 
and  send  it  down  again  in  pure  and  purify- 
ing dew  and  rain.  Yet  all  of  these  are  but 
imperfect  symbols  of  what  God  undertakes 
to  do  when  He  saves  the  lost,  and  constructs 

[26] 


THE  SEEKING   GOD 


out  of  rescued  ina.terial  the  august  and  in- 
vincible Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Gods  many 
there  have  been  in  earth's  theologies  and 
mythologies,  but  where,  outside  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  shall  we  find  such  a  God  as  this? 
No  Persian,  Hindu,  Egyptian,  Babylonian, 
Greek,  Eoman  or  Norse  deity  has  been 
thought  of  as  a  saviour  of  lost  men.  By  no 
effort  of  reason  can  any  one  of  them  be  iden- 
tified with  the  father  of  the  prodigal,  looking 
forth  from  his  lonely  dwelling  place  for  the 
first  sign  of  a  travel-worn  and  penitent  son. 

A  field  of  cactus  is  one  of  the  most  forbid- 
ding sights  on  our  arid  southwestern  plains. 
Fruitless  and  thorny,  it  cumbers  the  parched 
ground.  One  day,  a  man  said,  ^'If  I  could 
but  infuse  the  cactus  with  the  active  and  fer- 
tile principle  of  a  fruit-bearing  plant,  I  could 
make  the  desert  a  garden. '^  He  tried  to  do 
it.  He  tried,  presumably,  unnumbered  times, 
and  failed.  At  last  he  tried  and  did  not  fail. 
To-day,  at  Santa  Eosa,  Luther  Burbank  will 
show  you  a  variety  of  cactus  without  thorns, 
but  not  without  fruit.    It  is  one  of  the  mir- 

[27] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

acles  of  the  modem  world  of  scientific  experi- 
mentation. What  that  man  has  done  for  the 
cactus  is  a  symbol  of  what  Jesus  is  doing  for 
the  human  race.  He  came  to  live  in  our  des- 
ert. The  sharp  stones  bruised  His  feet,  and 
the  hot  sun  smote  Him;  wild  beasts  of  the 
hills  howled  about  Him,  and  wilder  beasts  of 
men  hunted  Him  to  his  death ;  but  He  did  not 
give  up  His  life  until  he  had  engrafted  upon 
humanity  the  life  of  God. 

The  prophet  who  had  prevision  of  a  time 
when  the  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place 
shall  be  glad,  and  when  the  desert  shall  re- 
joice and  blossom  as  the  rose,  may  not  have 
had  a  clear  conception  of  the  means  by  which 
that  transformation  shall  be  effected,  but  we 
are  not  without  evidence  that  he  thought  of 
a  divine  Man  as  the  creator  of  new  conditions. 
*^The  parched  ground  shall  become  a  pool.^' 
^^The  parched  ground"  is  literally  ^Hhe  mi- 
rage. ' '  So  Isaiah  dreamed  of  a  day  when  the 
ideal  shall  be  realized,  when  that  which  all 
the  holy  have  hoped  for  shall  become  a  fact. 
Henceforth  let  us  not  call  Jesus  the  divine 

[28] 


THE  SEEKING  GOD 


Dreamer — He  is  more  than  that,  more  than 
an  interpreter  of  dreams — He  is  the  worker- 
out  of  dreams,  at  once  the  fulfillment  and 
fulfiller  of  them. 

Yet  the  fulfillment  of  man^s  fairest  dream 
was  the  fruit  of  no  mere  languid  aspiration. 
The  architect  dreams  of  a  bridge  across  a 
chasm,  but  the  laborers  are  yet  to  come.  Je- 
sus is  man's  vicarious  Bridge-builder. 

The  parable  of  the  Lost  Coin  indicates 
God's  desire  for  the  restoration  of  man.  So 
also  does  that  of  the  Lost  Sheep.  But  that  of 
the  Lost  Son  completes  the  picture  of  God 
and  adds  to  our  knowledge  of  man  the  idea  of 
his  possible  cooperation  with  God  in  his  own 
salvation.  A  coin  is  valuable,  but  insensate. 
It  cannot  know  whether  it  is  in  the  possession 
of  its  rightful  owner.  A  sheep  can  know  its 
own  lostness,  but  is  helpless.  It  is  a  silly 
creature,  easily  panic-stricken,  and  totally  de- 
void of  the  homing  instinct,  common  to  dogs 
and  doves,  and  possessed  even  by  bees.  It 
can  cooperate  with  its  rescuer  only  as  its  pa- 
thetic voice  may  lead  him  to  the  pit  into  which 

[29] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

it  has  fallen,  or  to  the  rock  on  which  it  lies 
bleeding.  But  a  wandering  human  soul  can 
say,  **I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father."  He 
can  hear  the  Father's  voice,  and  answer,  *^I 
am  here,  and  I  am  coming."  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  God  listens  for  that  answer- 
ing cry.  He  hearkens,  that  is,  He  bends  for- 
ward to  hear  man's  answer  to  His  ^^Come.'' 
The  life  of  Jesus  from  Bethlehem  to  Olivet 
is  God^s  invitation  to  man  to  think  of  Him 
as  a  Father.  Everything  He  is  and  says  and 
does  beckons  us  Godward.  Nothing  forbids. 
."When  our  reluctant  souls  yield  to  the  gentle 
yet  urgent  entreaty  of  the  Christ,  it  dawns 
upon  us  in  how  many  ways  and  by  how  many 
means  He  has  been  appealing  to  us  to  come 
to  God.  His  voice  may  long  have  fallen  upon 
deaf  ears,  but  when  we  hear  it  we  recall  its 
accents  unheeded  in  the  past — in  our  past. 
Had  we  listened,  we  had  heard  that  Voice  in 
the  soft  winds,  in  the  loud  storms,  in  the  quiet 
of  the  evening,  in  the  silences  of  ithe  night. 
By  our  need  of  fellowship,  by  our  unquenched 
desire  for  satisfying  truth,  by  our  sense  of 

[30] 


THE  SEEKING  GOD 


the  vanity  of  life's  best  and  of  the  bitterness 
of  life's  worst,  by  our  yearning  for  rest  in 
the  sheltering  shadow  of  the  Eternal,  He  calls 
ns,  and  the  degree  of  our  response  to  Jesus' 
call  is  the  measure  of  our  approach  to  God. 


[31] 


II 

MAN'S  VAST  VALUE 


ORTHODOXIES  will  replace  orthodoxies,  but  evan- 
gelicalism, as  a  loyalty  of  the  spiritual  life  to 
Jesus  Christ,  will  abide.  Modem  men  will  succeed  mod- 
ern men,  but  He,  the  Christ,  will  continue  to  evoke  the 
faith  and  adoring  love  of  countless  generations.  Phys- 
ical life  will  end,  but  the  life  of  the  spirit  will  abide 
with  its  Lord,  who  is  Spirit.  Social  orders  will  replace 
social  orders,  but  brotherhood  will  expand  increasingly 
until  the  Great  Day  when  Jesus  shall  be  supreme,  and 
the  successive  approaches  of  the  spiritual  life  toward 
Him  as  its  Type  and  Saviour  shall  have  culminated  in  a 
social  order  in  which  sin  shall  be  ciTished,  Christlike 
souls  shall  constitute  the  Democracy  of  New  Spirit,  and 
God  shall  be  all  in  all. — Shailer  Mathews,  The  Gospel 
and  the  Modern  Man,  p.  327. 


II 

MAN'S  VAST  VALUE 

THEEE  has  come  into  the  world  a  new 
sense  of  the  worth  of  man  since  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  lived  and  wrought  and  taught.  It 
is  most  remarkable  that  He  who  knew  man 
most  deeply,  thought  most  highly  of  him. 
That  is  a  fine  definition  of  a  friend — one  who 
knows  all  about  us  and  still  believes  in  us. 
Jesus  is  man's  best  Friend. 

Three  thousand  years  ago,  pyramids  could 
be  built  without  enormous  cost,  even  though 
to  r^ise  one  granite  pile  required  the  labor  of 
a  hundred  thousand  men  for  thirty  years. 
Whait  Were  a  hundred  thousand  human' 
lives  in  the  eyes  of  a  Pharaoh,  a  Eameses,  a 
P.tolemy?  What  were  they  in  the  view  of  a 
Caesar ?i  It  detracts  somewhat  from  the  glory 
of  the  colossal  monuments  of  the  ancient 
wDrld  to  recall  that  they  were  possible  only 
because  human  life  was  incredibly  cheap. 

[37] 


^^ 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

The  great  wars  of  the  past  were  possible 
because  there  was  no  Carlyle  to  rise  up  and 
cry :  *  ^  Why  this  waste  of  life  ?  Is  not  every 
soldier  son  of  some  mother?  Why  should 
motherhood  rear  sons  for  slaughter?"  Was 
Carlyle  a  voice,  or  the  echo  of  a  voice  f  Where 
did  he  get  his  estimate  of  the  value  of  a  man's 
life?  Let  this  story  answer  that  question. 
Two  men  were  walking  together  along  a 
pleasant  road  in  Scotland.  They  came  to  a 
hill  overlooking  a  peaceful  valley.  In  the 
distance  was  a  village  with  a  solitary  church 
spire  rising  above  its  thatched  roofs.  One 
of  the  men  pointed  to  the  church,  and  said, 
**Were  it  not  for  that,  you  and  I  could  not  be 
here."  He  meant  that  civilization  is  under 
obligation  to  Christianity  for  all  it  counts 
most  dear.  The  speaker  was  Carlyle.  His 
voice  was  an  echo  out  of  Galilee. 

You  may  see  along  the  Tiber  engraved 
markers  in  the  walls  of  palaces,  indicating 
the  high-water  mark  of  the  river  at  flood 
time.  When  an  old  Eoman  dramatist  said, 
**I  am  a  man  and  nothing  human  is  alien  to 

[38] 


MAN'S  VAST  VALUE 


me,"  the  high-water  mark  of  paganism  was 
reached.  It  required  a  lofty  exercise  of 
spirit  to  reach  that  height.  For,  remember, 
so  great  a  mind,  so  ample  a  soul,  to  use  his 
own  phrase,  as  Plato,  had  declared:  ^^A  me- 
chanic has  no  leisure  to  be  under  a  physician's 
treatment;  let  him  try  some  active  remedy 
and  keep  about  his  business.  If  he  recovers 
he  can  keep  on  with  his  work ;  if  he  dies  he 
is  rid  of  his  troubles.  If  he  cannot  attend 
to  his  work  it  is  useless  for  him  to  live." 
And  it  was  Aristotle  wht)  declared :  *^  We  can- 
not dispense  with  farmers  and  mechanics, 
but  these  have  nothing  to  do  with  public  af- 
fairs, and  are  not  worthy  of  the  name  citi- 
zen. They  are  incapable  of  greatness  of  soul 
because  they  work  for  wages,  and  therefore 
must  be  of  a  mercenary  spirit.  The  differ- 
ence between  them  and  slaves  is  an  external 
difference  only.  They  ought  to  be  slaves, 
and  would  be  if  the  state  were  rich  enough 
to  buy  them,  or  strong  enough  to  enslave 
them.  Therefore  our  free  youth  ought  not 
to  learn  any  trade,  for  that  would  degrade 

[39] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

them  from  citizens  to  mechanics/'  Cicero 
expresses  the  same  opinion:  **What  more 
foolish  than  to  respect  the  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple as  anything,  when  you  despise  them  in- 
dividually as  laborers  and  barbarians!'' 

Into  a  world  accustomed  to  such  sentiments 
as  these,  Jesus  came  with  a  totally  different 
conception  of  the  worth  of  man,  teaching  that 
every  man  is  great  just  because  he  is  a  man. 
When  that  idea  took  root  in  human  thought, 
it  had  within  it  the  promise  of  all  coming 
freedom. 

If  any  man  asks,  ^^When  and  where  did 
Jesus  teach  any  such  doctrine  f"  we  point  to 
the  whole  tendency  of  His  teachings,  to  His 
conduct  in  social  relations,  as  well  as  to  His 
words.  See  His  absolute  disregard  of  tribal, 
national  and  social  distinctions.  The  Jew  in 
Jerusalem  and  the  Samaritan  under  the 
shadow  of  Ebal;  the  Greek  from  Decapolis 
and  the  Syrophoenician  woman,  were  equally 
in  His  sight  potential  subjects  of  the  King- 
dom of  God.  The  hated  publican  He  did  not 
despise.       The  blind  beggar,  the  naked  de- 

[40] 


MAN'S  VAST  VALUE 


moniac  with  foam  on  his  cut  lips,  the  unclean 
leper,  the  forgotten  social  pariah — all  these 
He  treated  with  tender  regard  for  their  hu- 
manity. He  had  eyes  wherewith  to  pierce 
tha  thin  disguise  of  flesh  and  see  beneath 
however  repulsive  exterior  the  image  of  God. 

Consider  His  estimate  of  the  worth  of  man 
— any  man — all  men — as  judged  by  His  ap- 
peal to  their  intellect.  The  noblest  teachers 
the  world  has  known  appealed  to  select 
classes,  considering  only  the  brilliant,  the 
clever,  the  enlightened,  as  worthy  or  capable 
of  receiving  their  truth.  Moses  had  no  mes- 
sage for  the  heathen — and  all  non-Hebrew 
nations  were  heathen  to  him.  Plato  had  no 
message  for  the  barbarian — and  all  non-Hel- 
lenic races  were  barbarians.  Buddliism  has 
its  esoteric  revelation — ^its  truth  for  the  ini- 
tiate alone.  But  to  whom  did  Jesus  appeal? 
To  all  men.  He  knew  no  aliens.  The  only 
man  barred  out  of  His  Kingdom  is  the  man 
who  erects  his  own  barriers. 

Not  long  after  Jesus  disappears  from  sight 
we  see  Saul  of  Tarsus,  narrowest  of  the  nar- 

[41] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 

row,  elect  of  the  elect,  break  away  from  all 
tradition,  all  custom,  all  precedent,  and 
preach  this  Gospel  to  Jew  and  Greek,  bond 
and  free,  male  and  female.  Koman  cen- 
turion, Philippian  woman  and  Greek  slave 
girl  are  all  welcome  to  hear  the  new  evangel. 
Doubt  if  we  may  the  miracle  of  the  noonday 
radiancfe  that  smote  Saul  blind,  we  cannot 
doubt  that  something  had  transformed  him 
from  the  bigoted  devotee  of  a  provincial 
faith  into  the  zealous  apostle  of  the  most 
catholic  and  democratic  doctrine  of  man  the 
world  had  yet  known.  The  appeal  of  Saul — 
now  Paul — ^like  that  of  his  Master,  was  to  the 
intellect  of  man  as  man. 

If  Jesus'  recognition  of  the  intellect  of 
man  implies,  as  it  does,  man's  vast  value, 
even  more  does  His  appeal  to  man's  deeper 
moral  nature.  It  was  true  once  that  not 
many  rich,  not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble, 
were  called,  but  from  the  first  all  who  were 
called  were  called  to  moral  wealth  and  worth, 
soul  power,  and  nobility  of  spirit.  '  In  the 
name   of   a   religion   which   professes   lofty 

[42] 


MAN'S  VAST  VALUE 


sentiments,  India  has  been  cursed  with,  a 
caste  system  which  is  the  chief  obstacle  to  so- 
cial progress  and  reform.  According  to  Hin- 
duism, one  bom  a  hewer  of  wood  or  a  drawer 
of  water  can  never  in  this  world  be  anything 
better.  Born  of  the  thief  caste,  he  can  never 
in  this  world  rise  above  it.  But  when  Chris- 
tianity confronts  caste  there  is  a  battle  to  the 
death.  Either  caste  goes  down,  or  Christian- 
ity is  defeated  in  the  encounter.  The  religion 
of  Jesus  everywhere  proclaims  that  there  is 
no  degree  of  mastery  in  the  practice  of  vir- 
tue, no  depth  of  knowledge  of  the  will  of  God, 
no  height  of  holiness,  no  expertness  in  the 
interpretation  of  spiritual  mysteries,  that 
any  man  of  any  birth  or  social  stratum  may 
not  aspire  to  and  attain.  The  serf  may  be  a 
saint.  The  mechanic  may  be  a  priest  unto  men 
and  a  prince  unto  God.  The  humble  shall  hear 
and  be  giadv    We  all,  beholding,  are  changed. 

"The  humblest  life  that  lives  may  be  divine; 
Christ  changed  the  common  water  into  wine. 
Starlike  comes  Love  from  out  the  magic  East — 
And  Life,  the  hermit,  finds  his  fast  a  feast." 

[43] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

Under  the  tuition  of  such  a  faith,  a  faith 
that  affirms  the  value  of  man  as  a  child  of 
God,  a  faith  that  appeals  to  the  intellect  and 
moral  nature  of  all  men — regardless  of  arbi- 
trary distinctions — a  faith  that  offers  glory, 
honor  and  immortality  to  all  who  will  to  do 
the  will  of  Jesus,  men  soon  outgrew  the  im- 
perfect opinions  of  the  philosophers  as  to  the 
value  of  man.  So  Basil  declares,  **Man  is 
a  great  being."  Ambrose  exclaims,  **Thou, 
0  man,  art  the  great  work  of  God."  Chrysos- 
tom  says:  ^*Do  not  imagine  that  an  injury 
to  a  slave  will  be  pardoned  as  of  no  conse- 
quence. Human  law  recognizes  a  difference 
between  the  two  classes,  but  God^s  law  knows 
none."  And  again,  the  golden-mouthed 
speaks:  *^You  say  your  father  is  a  consul. 
No  matter — show  me  your  life;  by  this  I 
will  judge  of  your  nobility.  I  call  the  slave 
noble  if  I  see  nobility  in  his  life.  I  call  base 
and  ignoble,  him  who,  though  in  the  midst  of 
dignities,  has  a  servile  spirit." 

Basil,  Ambrose  and  Chrysostom  were 
among  the  early  preachers  of  the  new  system. 

[44] 


MAN'S  VAST  VALUE 


Did  emperors  see  in  such  an  idea  the  future 
overthrow  of  CaBsarism,  imperialism,  insti- 
tutionalismll  It  was  there!  There  the 
Florentine  Republic,  the  Dutch  Republic,  the 
English  Commonwealth  and  the  American 
Constitution  are  contained.  There  were  the 
germs  of  a  movement  which  has  been  slow 
to  mature,  but  which  has  made  a  new  political 
map  of  the  world.  The  uplift  of  the  masses 
is  the  outgrowth  of  that  idea.  From  it  has 
been  derived  the  present  passion  for  the  cure 
of  social  and  industrial  ills.  Jesus'  doctrine 
of  man's  vast  value  is  behind  the  philan- 
thropy which  writes  over  against  the  natural 
law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  the  new  law, 
'*  We  must  make  the  unfit  fit  to  survive !"  If 
the  natural  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
means  the  survival  of  the  fittest  to  survive, 
and  not  the  survival  of  the  fittest  to  live,  then 
how  immeasurably  superior  is  Christ's  doc- 
trine, which  seeks  to  make  the  morally  unfit 
fit  to  live,  fit  to  fill  life  with  hitherto  unim- 
agined  fullness,  fit  to  invest  the  word  *4ife" 
— ^which  may  mean  mere  animated  existence 

[45] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

— with  meaning  that  exhausts  the  power  of 
language  to  define!  Henry  Herbert  Knibbs 
gives  us  such  an  idea  of  life  endowed  with 
the  quality  of  eternity: 

Heaven  is  viewless.    That  is  good  for  ns. 

Hell  is  apparent  in  the  daily  stress, 

And  nightly  strife  with  dragons.     That's  good,  too. 

He  that  once  sees  the  pit  avoids  the  pit. 

And  on  the  path  of  safety  nears  the  throne. 

The  soul  but  turns  npon  itself  that  spends 

All  effort  in  avoiding  sin,  nor  nears 

The  portals  of  the  Home.    Aye,  He  asks  more — 

A  ceaseless  toiling  toward  the  waiting  Face, 

To  win  the  blessed  best  there  is  in  Life. 


[46] 


Ill 

A  NEW  AND  LIVING  WAY  TO  GOD 


THE  conscience-stirring,  faith-evoking  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth, who,  amidst  the  flux  of  words  in  which  men 
have  tried  to  explain  His  person,  has,  through  the  cen- 
turies, satisfied  man's  hunger  for  a  knowable,  reconciled 
God,  given  the  perfect  revelation  of  the  spiritual  life  that 
is  eternal,  and  proclaimed  the  certainty  of  the  life  to 
come,  is  an  unchanging  element  of  a  Christianity  that 
ever  seeks  to  adapt  the  Gospel  to  a  changing  order. 

If  the  modern  man  cannot  understand  or  accept  an 
inherited  Christology,  he  can  at  least  in  the  depths  of 
his  own  spiritual  life  serve  the  real  Person  whose  re- 
demptive energy  doctrine  seeks  to  estimate  and  enforce. 
And  in  serving  Him  he  will  know  the  power  as  well  as 
the  struggle  of  the  emancipated,  victorious,  spiritual 
life. — Shailer  Mathews,  The  Gospel  and  the  Modem 
Man,  p.  298. 


Ill 

:a:  new  and  living  way  to  god 

AT  the  very  basis  of  all  the  great  religions 
L  lies  the  hypothesis — possibly  it  would 
better  be  called  hypostasis — ^that  man  needs 
to  be  restored ;  that,  made  to  be  at  home  with 
God,  he  has  somehow  lost  himself;  that,  away 
from  God,  man  is  out  of  normal  adjustment. 
It  goes  far  to  establish  the  doctrine  of  sin 
that  it  is  a  part  of  every  religious  system 
that  has  taken  any  deep  hold  upon  the  human 
intellect. 

The  literature  of  the  world  affords  ample 
illustration  of  the  experience  of  conscious 
moral  lostness.  Poetry,  the  history  of  the 
heart,  is  full  of  it.  Pagan  moralists  confess 
it.  The  old,  old  cry  has  echo  in  modem 
hearts, 

"I  was  bom  in  ignorance, 
I  have  lived  in  uncertainty, 
I  die  in  trepidation — 0  Cause  of  Causes,  pity  me !" 

[51] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

Chief  among  the  problems  of  social  sci- 
ence is  that  of  correcting,  arresting,  or  cur- 
ing the  deep-seated  tendencies  in  man  to  evil. 
By  all  the  complicated  codes  of  law,  civil  and 
criminal;  by  all  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment designed  to  protect  our  persons  and 
guard  our  properties  from  harm ;  by  all  our 
institutions  for  retributive  and  remedial 
treatment  of  wrongdoers,  we  confess  a  com- 
mon alienation  from  the  ideal  and  estrange- 
ment from  goodness,  a  world  need,  which  can 
be  satisfied  only  by  a  world  return  to  God. 

The  end  of  all  religion  is  to  bridge  the 
chasm  between  man  and  God;  to  bring  man 
back  to  God — or  up  to  God;  to  diminish  the 
distance  between  what  humanity  now  is  and 
humanity  as  God  sees  it  in  His  finished 
thought.  The  very  word  religion  means  just 
this,  to  reunite,  to  rebind  in  perfect  harmony 
the  finite  and  the  infinite. 

When  Jonathan  Edwards  said,  **I  will 
make  the  salvation  of  my  soul  the  great  busi- 
ness of  my  life,"  he  spoke  wisely,  and,  con- 
sidered as  to  its  ultimate  implication,   un- 

[52] 


A  NEW  AND  LIVING   WAY 

selfishly.  No  foolish  man,  no  selfish  man, 
ever  made  true  religion  the  serious  business 
of  his  life.  Browning  represents  Johannes 
Agricola  as  saying: 

"There's  heaven  above,  and  night  by  night 
I  look  right  through  its  gorgeous  roof, 
Nor  suns  and  moons,  tho'  e'er  so  bright 
Avail  to  stop  me;    splendor-proof, 
I  keep  the  broods  of  stars  aloof, 
For  I  intend  to  get  to  God." 

This,  after  all,  is  the  quest  of  the  ages — 
not  for  gold,  but  for  God.  Philip's  words  to 
Jesus  were  representative,  and"  not  alone 
personal,  ^^Show  us  the  Father. '^  But  we 
expect  no  vision  of  the  Eternal.  All  Philip 
wanted  was — and  all  we  want  is — to  know 
how  to  get  to  God.  Jesus  knew  what  all  the 
sons  of  men  were  seeking,  and  He  saivi,  ^^I 
am  the  way.''  If  He  had  said,  ^'I  know  the 
way,"  it  had  been  a  startling  thing.  If 
He  had  said,  ^^I  will  show  you  the  way,^^  He 
had  promised  an  incalculably  precious  gift 
to  men.  But  when  He  said,  *  ^  I  am  the  way, ' ' 
He  left  the  company  of  mere  students  and 

[53] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

teachers,  and  stepped  into  a  radiance  tliat 
gives  deathless  glory  to  His  name.  There 
have  been  other  pathfinders,  bnt  here  is  One 
who  claims  to  be  the  Path.  Is  it  strange  the 
anonymous  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews calls  Him  the  ^'new  and  living  way''  to 
God? 

The  old  way  was  formal,  ceremonial.  Mo- 
ses said,  *^ Sacrifice  is  the  way  to  God."  So 
altars  were  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  the 
lambs  and  calves.  This  was  symbol,  but  as 
with  us,  the  symbol  was  too  often  mistaken 
for  that  it  was  intended  to  symbolize,  and 
worship  degenerated  into  a  hollow,  spiritless 
form.  Prophets  and  psalmists  called  the  peo- 
ple back  to  truth,  saying,  ^'The  sacrifices  of 
God  are  a  broken  spirit."  '^Eend  your  heart, 
and  not  your  garments."  Yet  all  the  words 
of  preachers  and  prophets  fell  on  deaf  ears, 
until  Jesus  came  to  demonstrate  the  mean- 
ing of  a  living  sacrifice;  to  translate  into 
human  experience  the  divine  will  with  refer- 
ence to  man's  life  and  man's  approach  to  God. 
There  is  now  no  need  for  beasts  to  bleed  upon 

[54] 


A  NEW  AND  LIVING   WAY 

the  altar.  Let  the  cooing  doves  and  the  low- 
ing kine  be  driven  from  the  temple  courts.  Let 
fires  die  out,  which  once  consumed  the  flesh 
of  pious  offerings.  The  sacrificial  life  and 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  fulfills  all  types,  and 
the  way  of  His  Cross  and  ours  is  the  new  and 
living  way  to  God. 

The  late  Dr.  John  Fiske  gave  us  a  book 
entitled  ^ '  Through  Nature  to  God. "  Thomas 
Moore  wrote : 

There's  nothing  bright,  above,  below. 
From  flowers  that  bloom  to  stars  that  glow, 
But  in  its  impress  we  can  see 
Some  feature  of  the  Deity. 

The  pantheist  points  us  to  God  in  nature. 
The  devout  naturalist  looks  through  nature 
up  to  nature's  God.  He  who  sincerely  seeks 
God  in  forest  or  field  is  not  without  his  re- 
ward. The  astronomer  who  cried,  '^0  God, 
I  think  thy  thoughts  after  thee!'^  had  caught 
a  glimpse  of  nature's  God.  To  him  the  star- 
paved  spaces  of  the  sky  were  paths  by  which 
his  mind  was  led  to  God. 

To    every    reverent    student    of    natural 

[55] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

forces,  the  laws  of  nature  are  the  thoughts 
of  God.  When  we  discover  some  great  prin- 
ciple, such  as  gravitation  or  evolution,  we 
perceive  God's  habits  in  the  creation  and 
government  of  the  universe.  But,  though  na- 
ture is  not  a  dead  realm ;  though  there  is  life 
in  all  its  parts,  and  though  that  life  is  one, 
whether  blowing  underfoot  in  clover,  or 
beating  overhead  in  stars,  the  way  to  God 
through  nature  is  not  an  easy  way.  The  pil- 
grim is  all  too  likely  to  grow  weary  of  the 
quest,  and  to  ^x  his  faith  upon  some  work  of 
God.  Fire-worshipers,  sun-worshipers,  idol- 
worshipers  of  every  sort,  have  stopped  short 
of  the  Ultimate  Cause  of  causes.  Left  to 
himself,  the  common  man  never  finds  his  way 
through  nature  to  God.  He  mistakes  nature 
for  God,  prays  to  the  wind,  and  peoples  the 
air  with  spirits,  of  his  own  imagining.  Na- 
ture needs  an  interpreter. 

How  dull  and  unattractive  to  the  most  of 
us  is  any  nature  study  until  some  skillful 
teacher  opens  our  understanding!  One  of 
his  students  pays  this  tribute  to  Professor 

[56] 


A  NEW  AND  LIVING  WAY 

Agassiz:  **His  teaching  was  a  revelation; 
nothing  of  natural  history  could  ever  be  the 
same  to  us  after  he  had  spoken  to  us  of  it." 
Many  a  student  of  philosophy  has  said  the 
same  of  Mark  Hopkins  or  of  James  McCosh. 
The  way  into  the  meaning  of  truth  is  best 
opened  by  a  living  teacher.  The  word — ^bio- 
logical, astronomical,  philosophical — must  be 
made  flesh  and  dwell  among  us.  The  Word 
of  God  must  be  made  flesh.  It  must  be  em- 
bodied in  a  human  life.  Jesus  Christ  is  that 
Embodiment.  The  other  word  for  embodi- 
ment is  Incarnation. 

As  supplemental,  in  a  sense,  to  Dr.  Fiske's 
** Through  Nature  to  God,''  Dr.  George  A. 
Gordon  gives  us  his  study,  *^  Through  Man 
to  God."  It  is  a  helpful  and  noble  book,  and 
points  to  the  same  necessity  in  the  realm  of 
religion  that  exists  in  the  realm  of  science 
and  art — the  truth  must  be  embodied  that  we 
may  all  see  and  know  it.  It  must  have  been 
the  consideration  of  this  necessity  on  our 
part,  as  well  as  of  infinite  goodness  on  God's 
part,  which  led  Professor  Eomanes  to  write 

[57] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

in  his  fragmentary  *^  Thoughts  on  Eeligion/' 
^'The  Incarnation  is  not  only  not  unreason- 
able, but  antecedently  probable. ' ' 

The  fatherliness  of  God  is  a  sufficient  ex- 
planation of  the  whole  Christian  scheme  of 
redemption.  A  father  must  manifest  himself 
to  his  own  children.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
startling  thoughts  in  all  th-e  Holy  Scriptures 
that  God  lacks  something  of  completion  until 
humanity  knows  Him  as  He  is.  Is  the  Abso- 
lute not  absolute,  therefore?  The  Absolute 
cannot  be  the  Absolute  until  he  is  All  in  All 
to  all  His  children. 

Dr.  Eobert  E.  Speer,  in  a  masterly  address 
on  ^^The  Unsatisfied  Longing  of  Christ,'^  af- 
firms that  the  divine  Saviour  cannot  be  all 
it  is  possible  for  Him  tp  be  to  any  soul  until 
He  is  all  it  is  possible  for  Him  to  be  to  all 
souls.  The  sea  is  not  the  *' all-absolving  sea^' 
until  it  washes  all  shores,  and  fills  every  bay 
and  inlet  to  the  utmost  of  its  capacity.  The 
air  is  not  the  all-ensphering  air  until  it 
penetrates  every  nook  and  corner  of  the 
earth. 

[58] 


A  NEW  AND  LIVING  WAY 

From  the  dawu  of  moral  consciousness  in 
man,  God  has  besieged  the  human  soul  in  ef- 
forts to  fill  it  with  His  own  power  and  pres- 
ence. Barriers  of  ignorance  have  obstructed 
His  entrance  into  our  lives,  barriers  of  base 
passion,  and  false  pride,  and  vain  thoughts, 
and  selfish  desires.  God  cannot  force  us  to 
recognize  and  receive  Him  without  robbing 
us  of  our.  free  will  and  power  of  choice.  But 
the  sieg«e  is  never  lifted.  God  never  grows 
weary'  in  His  attempt  to  occupy  a  Kingdom 
which  of  right  is  His.  The  Incarnation  is  His 
utmost  effort  to  gain  access  to  our  inner  lives. 
Omnipotence  can  go  no  further.  The  infinite 
has  no  greater  resource  of  argTiment  or 
power. 

It  is  as  if  a  father  were  seeking  to  reveal 
himself  to  his  children  by  gifts  of  his  own 
making.  Is  hfe  an  artist?  He  paints  a  pic- 
ture, or  carves  a'  statue.  That  sunset  sky  is 
our  Father's  canvas,  that  human  form  is  his 
sculpture.  But  not  yet  do  the  children  see 
their  father  in  his  works.  So  he  writes  them, 
writes  tenderly,  simply,  beautifully.    He  re- 

[59] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

veals  his  mind  in*  letters.  This  Bible  is  onr 
Father's  letter  to  ns.  But  not  yet  do  the 
children  see  their  father  in  his  words.  At 
last,  having  prepared  them  for  his -coming, 
he  appears  among  them,  walks  with  them, 
converses  with  them,  helps  them  in  nnnum- 
bered  ways,  and  seeks  by  patience  and  benev- 
olence to  win  their  love.  God  was  in  Christ 
reconciling  the  world  unto  Himself.  Can  any 
father  do  more  than  thatf  Is  there  any  way 
to  God  so  plain,  so  simple,  so  worthy  of  all 
acceptation,  as  the  Living  Way — the  way  of 
the  Life?  More  directly  than  through  sym- 
bolism, more  satisfyingly  than  through  na- 
ture, more  surely  than  through  processes  of 
reasoning,  more  personally  than  through  a 
book,  we  see  God  in  Jesus  Christ.  And  how 
we  see  Him  is  suggested  by  a  poet  who  found 
and  followed  the  New  and  Living  Way: 

"In  Christ  I  feel  the  heart  of  God 

Throbbing  from  heaven  through  earth. 

Life  stirs  again  within  the  clod, 
Renewed  in  beanteoiis  birth. 

The  soul  springs  up,  a  flower  of  prayer, 
Breathing  His  breath  out  on  the  air. 

[60] 


A  NEW  AND  LIVING   WAY 


"In  Christ  I  touch  the  Iiand  of  God, 
From  His  pure  heights  reached  down, 

By  blessed  ways  before  untrod, 
To  lift  us  to  our  crown; 

Victory  that  only  perfect  is 

Through  loving  sacrifice,  like  His. 

"Holding  His  hand,  my  steadied  feet 

May  walk  the  air,  the  seas; 
On  life  and  death  His  smile  falls  sweet, 

Lights  up  all  mysteries; 
Stranger  nor  exile  can  I  be 

In  new  worlds  where  He  leadeth  me." 


[61] 


IV 
NEW  LIFE  FROM  GOD 


THERE  is,  as  Dr.  Kewton  Clarke  says,  good  reason 
why  regeneration  should  be  the  favorite  name  for 
describing,  from  the  divine  side,  the  beginning  of  the 
divine  life  in  man;  but  if  any  man,  conscious  of  the 
reality  of  the  change,  finds  some  other  figure  truer  to  the 
facts  of  his  own  experience,  let  him  not  hesitate  to  use  it ; 
the  warrant  for  his  freedom  is  the  New  Testament  itself. 
Even  our  familiar  and  comprehensive  "conversion"  is  not 
the  only  legitimate  name;  perhaps  it  is  not  in  every  case 
the  best  possible  name  for  the  experience  it  describes. 
Conversion  is  the  turning  round  of  the  soul  from  evil 
to  good,  from  sin  to  God.  But  the  writer  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  prefen-ed  to  speak  rather  of  our  being 
"enlightened";  so  that  instead  of  speaking  of  a  man's 
conversion  we  might  speak  with  equal  accuracy,  and  in 
some  cases  perhaps  with  more  perfect  fitness,  of  his 
"illumination,"  the  diffusion  of  divine  light  through  the 
sin-darkened  soul. — George  Jackson,  The  Fact  of  Con- 
version, pp.  104,  105. 

There  are  experiences  of  another  kind  by  which  the 
faith  of  a  Christian  man  is  verified.  Of  these  one  of 
the  most  decisive  and  most  wonderful  is  the  conscious- 
ness that  through  Christ  he  has  passed  into  the  eternal 
and  divine  order.  He  belongs  to  two  worlds.  He  is 
just  as  certain  that  he  is  environed  by  things  unseen  and 
eternal  as  that  he  is  environed  by  things  seen  and  tem- 
poral. In  the  power  of  the  life  given  to  him  in  the  new 
birth  he  has  entered  into  the  Kingdom  of  God.  He  is 
conscious  that  that  diviner  region  is  now  the  native  land 
of  his  soul.  It  is  there  that  he  finds  perfect  rest  and 
perfect  freedom.    It  is  a  relief  to  escape  to  its  eternal 


peace  and  glory  from  the  agitations  and  vicissitudes,  the 
sorrows  and  successes,  of  this  transitory  world.  It  is 
not  always  that  he  is  vividly  conscious  of  belonging  to 
that  eternal  order;  this  supreme  blessedness  is  reserved 
for  the  great  hours  of  life;  but  he  knows  that  it  lies 
about  him  always,  and  that  at  any  moment  the  great 
apocalypse  may  come.  And  even  when  it  is  hidden,  its 
"powers"  continue  to  act  upon  him,  as  the  light  and  heat 
of  the  sun  pass  through  the  clouds  by  which  the  burning 
splendor  is  softened  and  concealed. — ^R.  W.  Dale,  The 
Living  Christ  and  the  Four  Gospels,  pp.  15,  16. 


IV 

NEW  LIFE  PROM  GOD 

THERE  was  a  wise  and  noble  man  who 
came  by  night  to  seek  an  interview  with 
Jesus.  He  had  thought  long  and  deeply  on 
religious  things.  He  knew  the  utter  empti- 
ness of  a  merely  mechanical  piety.  Nothing 
less  than  a  faith  of  freedom  and  power  could 
satisfy  him.  So  he  came  to  One  whom  he 
recognized  as  a  religious  authority;  came  by 
night  probably  because  he  sought  an  uninter- 
rupted interview ;  proved  his  courage  by  com- 
ing at  all  to  One  at  whom  the  scribes  and 
lawyers  looked  askance.  Jesus  honored  his 
courage  and  his  sincerity,  and  gave  him  the 
best  answer  possible. 

In  that  night  interview  with  Nicodemus 
Jesus  declared  more  plainly  than  at  any  other 
time  His  doctrine  of  the  new  birth,  '^Ye  must 
be  bom  again."  It  sounded  strange  to  the 
wise  man.    It  was  a  dark  saying,  and  a  hard 

[67] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

saying.  Instantly  the  scientist  and  the  philos- 
opher asserted  themselves  in  a  great,  press- 
ing, persistent  '^Howl''  Jesns  answered  the 
question  with  a  parable  from  nature,  a  par- 
able about  the  wind.  More  mystified  than  ever 
perhaps,  the  truth-seeker  went  away.  But  it 
is  not  written  that  he  went  away  sorrowful 
or  indignant.  He  went  away  wondering. 
Subsequently  we  have  a  flash-light  picture 
of  this  same  Nicodemus.  In  an  hour  of  crisis 
he  speaks  a  good  word  for  Jesus.  The  night 
interview  was  not  in  vain.  "We  have  no  means 
of  knowing  to  what  experience  in  his  own  life 
Nicodemus  had  been  led  by  the  strange  words 
about  a  second  birth,  but  if  we  look  into 
Christian  history  we  shall  find  innumerable 
pages  made  radiant  by  lives  into  which  had 
come  some  such,  transformation  as  that  which 
may  properly  be  supposed  to  follow  a  second 
birth. 

Buddhism  offers  the  seeker  after  the  su- 
preme gift  of  life  a  second  birth,  and  a  third, 
and  a  thousandth,  but  all  beyond  the  grave. 
By  a  series  of  rebirths,  reincarnations,  the 

[68] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM   GOD 


soul  at  last  may  come  to  satisfying  peace. 
Deliverance  from  ill  may  be  achieved  un- 
counted aeons  hence.  The  doctrine  of  Jesus 
is  that  of  a  present  deliverance.  He  says  not 
only,  **  Ye  must  be  born  again/'  but,  **  Ye  may 
be  born  again."  Here  and  now  in  the  midst 
of  time,  surrounded  by  clamorous  evils,  and 
feeling  within  our  own  natures  the  oft  up- 
rising of  unspiritual  forces,  we  may,  if  this 
doctrine  of  Jesus  be  dependable,  experience  a 
change  of  motive,  an  acquisition  of  power,  a 
new  and  superior  viewpoint,  not  by  our  own 
labored  efforts  at  self-help,  but  by  the  com- 
munication of  a  new  and  superior  quality  of 
inward  life. 

The  word  **  conversion, "  with  all  its  wealth 
of  meaning,  does  not  adequately  describe  the 
experience  of  new  life  from  God.  It  is  diiSi- 
cult  for  us  to  get  away  from  the  etymological 
content  of  a  word,  and  ^* conversion"  is  a 
word  which  does  not  necessarily  carry  with 
it  all  the  significance  which  attaches  to  such 
a  word  as  *  ^  regeneration. "  Conversion  de- 
notes a  change  from  one  state  or  condition  to 

[69] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

another,  a  change  of  mind,  of  viewpoint,  of 
convictions  or  emotions.  This  is  included  in 
the  Christian  conception  of  a  spiritual  life. 
But  the  term  which  describes  the  genesis  of 
this  new  life  is  that  which  Jesus  used  not 
once,  nor  twice,  but  often.  After  Him,  the 
apostles  used  it.  They  cannot  make  it  more 
striking  by  varying  the  terms  by  which  they 
refer  to  it.  Nor  is  there  need  to  make  it 
plainer.  Birth  is  the  beginning  of  natural 
life.  Eebirth  is  the  beginning  of  spiritual 
life. 

Conversion  is  the  souPs  return  to  God.  It 
has  been  well  called,  in  instances  in  which  the 
change  of  attitude  was  sudden,  the  soul's  leap 
to  God.  In  cases  in  which  the  change  is  more 
gradual,  it  is  the  souPs  approach  to  God. 
Eegeneration  is  not  only  a  new  impulse  from 
God,  but  the  genesis  of  a  new  heredity,  di- 
vine in  origin  and  in  essential  nature.  It  is 
the  spiritual  process  of  the  remaking  of  a  life 
which  sin  had  unmade. 

A  youth  of  twenty  sat  alone  in  a  little 
hired  room  in  a  city  boarding  house.    He  had 

[70] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM  GOD 


just  left  behind  Mm  a  battle  field  on  which 
sense  and  spirit  had  warred  for  the  mastery. 
Sense  had  been  victorious.  Conscience  was 
at  work.  The  angel  of  penitence  had  come 
to  minister  to  him  with  the  sweet  baptism  of 
tears.  The  remembrance  of  other  battle 
fields  was  in  his  mind.  He  reasoned  with  him- 
self thns:  ^^My  associates  have  misled  me. 
Their  combined  influence  is  stronger  than  my 
power  to  resist.  I  must  cut  loose  from  them. 
I  will."  And  he  did.  **I  have  some  books 
which  have  tripped  me  up.  The  reading  of 
them  has  awakened  the  animal  within  me  and 
paralyzed  my  moral  mu-scle.  I  will  destroy 
them."  And  he  did.  ^*I  have  certain  habits 
of  thoughts  and  choice  which  have  been  hurt- 
ful to  me.  By  oft  yielding  to  the  inclination 
of  habit,  I  have  worn  grooves  in  my  mental 
mechanism  along  which  it  daily  becomes 
easier  for  imagination  and  desire  to  run.  I 
must  establish  new  mental  habits.  It  will  re- 
quire constant  and  painful  effort,  but  new 
habits  can  be  acquired.  But  more  than  all 
these,  I  have  propensities  to  evil,  probably  in- 

[71] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

bred.  I  need  not  only  new  friends,  and  new 
books,  and  new  habits,  but  a  new  heredity. 
God  is  my  Father.  Surely  childship  involves 
similitude  of  character.  I  will  seek  to  re- 
establish my  vital  relation  to  God.''^  What 
he  sought  was  nothing  else  and  nothing  less 
than  a  new  birth.  How  he  sought  it  cannot 
easily  be  told.  Whether  he  obtained  it,  he 
alone  is  competent  to  say.  But  one  who 
knows  him  intimately  is  prepared  to  affirm 
that  presently  he  became  conscious  of  such  a 
new  and  pervasiv-e  sense  of  inward  reen- 
forcement  that  when  he  sought  in  the  Scrip- 
tures the  proper  terminology  with  which  to 
express  his  experience,  he  found  it  only  in  a 
saying  of  Paul,  **If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he 
is  a  new  creation.^' 

One  who  is  bom  into  this  world  not  only 
enters  a  realm  hitherto  unknown  to  him,  but 
leaves  behind  a  realm  totally  different  from 
that  which  he  enters.  So,  it  would  seem,  the 
experience  of  the  new  birth  involves,  prior  to, 
or  coincident  with,  the  new  creation,  a  de- 
struction,  a  dismissal,   an  abandonment  o'f 

[72] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM   GOD 


such  **former  things"  as  are  in  their  nature 
incompatible  with  the  new  life  upon  which 
one  has  entered. 

If  we  could  divest  ourselves  of  some  of  our 
preconceived  notions,  derived  consciously  or 
unconsciously  from  sermons,  or  books,  or 
conversations ;  if  we  could  dismiss  from  our 
minds  some  of  the  once  valuable  but  now 
well-worn  phrases  associated  with  religious 
experience,  and  approach  the  whole  problem 
of  this  experience  called  regeneration,  and 
view  it  through  eyes  divested  of  the  scales 
of  prejudice  through  which  often  we  see  but 
dimly,  because  of  the  very  familiarity  of  that 
upon  which  we  look,  we  might  see  that,  after 
all,  however  mystical  the  experience  may  be, 
however  supernormal  it  may  seem  to  be, 
spiritual  regeneration  has  its  parallels  in  the 
realms  of  intellect  and  sensibility.  Not  un- 
common, when  we  review  the  mental  biog- 
raphies of  many  people,  is  the  radical,  even 
revolutionary,  effect  of  a  picture,  a  book,  or 
even  of  a  single  sentence,  upon  all  the  subse- 
quent history  of  an  individual.     Mental  life 

[73] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

is  reorganized  about  a  new  center.  The 
esthetic  nature  is  rehabilitated,  or  moral  life 
is  penetrated  with  the  imperative  force  of 
new  ideals.  An  English  youth  hears  by  ap- 
parent chance,  the  phrase,  ^^The  greatest 
good  of  the  gfeates»t  number,"  and  in  after 
years  confesses  that  all  his  studies  in  civil 
and  political  economy  had  their  beginning  in 
that  single  sentence.  It  gripped  him  as  with 
hoops  of  steel.  It  brought  into  play  upon 
and  within  his  life,  forces  of  the  existence  of 
which  he  had  hitherto  been  unconscious.  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  ascribed  his  benevolent  im- 
pulses to  the  influence  of  a  book  he  read  in 
youth — Cotton  Mather's  ** Essays  to  Do 
Good."  A  young  English  physician,  utterly 
unspiritual,  happens  into  an  auditorium  in 
which  an  American  evangelist  is  conducting  a 
service.  Nothing  the  evangelist  says,  noth- 
ing the  great  choir  sings,  impresses  him,  but 
the  manner  in  which  the  evangelist  conducts 
the  service,  prompt,  businesslike,  shrewd  and 
sane,  leads  him  to  review  the  mental  process 
by  which  he  has  hitherto  evaded  the  religious 

[74] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM   GOD 


appeal.  The  young  man  has  not  been  irre- 
ligious, but  unreligious.  He  goes  away  from 
this  service  to  assume  henceforth  a  new  at- 
titude, not  alone  toward  religion,  but  toward 
the  world  at  large.  The  center  of  life  has 
shifted.  Presently  we  find  him  a  volunteer 
surgeon  on  a  hospital  ship  among  the  neg- 
lected fishermen  of  the  North  Sea,  and  a  lit- 
tle later,  apostle,  messenger,  and  ^^angeF'  to 
the  Labrador  coast. 

Time  would  fail  us  were  we  to  attempt  even 
to  catalogue,  without  at  all  describing  or  de- 
fining, just  such  experiences,  the  records  of 
which  are  within  the  common  knowledge  of 
us  all.  Personalities  so'  disparate  as  Martin 
Luther  and  Friar  Lawrence,  Thomas  Carlvle 
and  John  Henr^^  Newman,  Professor  Franz 
Delitzsch  and  Mr.  W.  T.  Stead,  John  "Wesley 
and  James  Smetham,  Horace  Bushnell  and 
Charles  Kingsley,  Cardinal  Manning  and 
Charles  H.  Spurgeon,  Dr.  R.-  W,  Dale  and 
General  Booth,  Lady  Henry  Somerset  and 
Adeline,  Countess  Schimm elmann,  Dwight  L. 
Moody  and  Frank  T'.  Bullen,  witness,  with 

[75] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

that  remarkable  agreement  in  general,  com- 
bined with  difference  in  detail,  which  is  the 
best  evidence  of  competent  testimony,  that 
the  experience  of  a  new  creation  is  not  pecul- 
iar to  any  period  of  time  or  to  any  type  of 
mentality.  Professor  Komanes,  friend  and 
disciple  of  Darwin,  having  lost  and  regained 
his  faith  in  the  integrity  of  the  facts  of  Chris- 
tian consciousness  declares,  in  his  '*  Thoughts 
on  Eeligion,'^  '^This  experience  [speaking  of 
conversion]  has  been  repeated  and  testified 
to  by  countless  millions  of  civilized  men  and 
women  in  all  nations  and  all  degrees  of  cul- 
ture." Professor  George  Jackson,  of  Dids- 
bury  College,^  alluding  to  many  ancient  and 
modern  instances  of  spiritual  rebirth,  says: 

Facts  are  not  fairy  armies  which  vanish  into  thin 
air  at  the  waving  of  a  magician's  wand;  but  in  this 
case  the  facts  are  so  numerous  and  so  well  authenticated 
that  to  attempt  to  ignore  them  is  simply  to  put  the  fools- 
cap on  our  own  heads.  And  if,  instead  of  ignoring, 
we  will  patiently  investigate  these  sudden  conversions, 
but  two  points  in  regard  to  them  will,  I  think,  become 


^  In   the   Cole   Lectures   at   Vanderbilt  University,   1908,   on  "The 
Reality  of  Conversion  as  a  Fact  of  Consciousness." 

[76] 


NEW  LIFE   FROM    GOD 


clear  to  us.  First,  while  no  definite  significance  attaches 
to  the  manner  of  conversion  but  only  to  the  results  of 
it,  and  while  sudden  conversions  are  often  followed  by 
disappointing  reactions,  on  the  other  hand,  the  lives  of 
multitudes,  lifted  at  once  and  permanently  to  a  higher 
level,  remain  to  attest  the  reality  of  the  experience; 
and,  secondly,  it  seems  unquestionable,  however  we  may 
explaiu  it,  that  there  ai-e  some  whose  one  chance  of 
better  things  lies  in  some  sudden,  soul-shattering  ex- 
perience, which  overturns  the  life  from  its  foundations. 

In  recent  years  there  has  been  a  striking 
movement  among  scholars,  with  a  passion  for 
original  investigation  and  research,  to  reduce 
the  facts  of  Christian  consciousness  to  a  sci- 
ence, or  at  least  to  study  them  with  scientific 
thoroughness  and  impartiality.  Professor 
Henry  Drummond  was  among  the  first  to 
point  out  that  it  must  be  one  aim  of  a  scien- 
tific theology  to  study  the  phenomena  attend- 
ing and  following  conversion,  in  order  to  re- 
store to  Christianity  its  most  convincing  cre- 
dential. Professor  Starbuck  in  *^The  Psy- 
chology^ of  Keligion,^'  Professor  Coe  in  ^^The 
Spiritual  Life ;  Studies  in  the  Science  of  Ee- 
ligion,"  and  in  ''The  Eeligion  of  a  Mature 
Mind,"  Professor  James  in  ''Varieties   of 

[77] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

Eeligious  Experience,"  and  Professor  Jack- 
son in  the  Cole  Lectures  alluded  to  above, 
"Wihicli  have  been  published  under  the  title 
**The  Fact  of  Conversion,"  have  done  much 
to  redeem  the  data  of  spiritual  life  from 
seeming  unreality.  There  can  be  no  satis- 
factory argument  against  the  genuineness  of 
the  results  of  conversion  in  the  face  of  such 
facts  as  have  been  collected  with  extraordi- 
nary care  and  presented  with  luminous  clear- 
ness by  Professor  Leuba  in  the  **  American 
Journal  of  Psychology"  (vol.  7,  page  373), 
by  Harold  Begbie  in  *^ Twice-Born  Men"  and 
*^ Souls  in  Action,"  and  by  Philip  I.  Roberts 
in  **The  Dry-Dock  of  a  Thousand  Wrecks." 
A  distinguished  authority  on  comparative 
religions  affirms  that  the  consciousness  of 
personal  fellowship  with  God  through  faith 
in  Christ  is  one  of  the  distinctive  features  of 
Christianity,  and  that  there  is  no  trace  of 
anything  like  it  in  any  oriental  religion.  This 
consciousness  of  fellowship  has  sometimes 
been  called  God-consciousness.  The  moment 
of  its  beginning  is  the  birth  moment  of  the 

[78] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM   GOD 


new  man,  tlie  spiritual  man.  What  shall  we 
call  the  event  which  marks  that  beginning? 
It  has  been  pointed  out  that  Jesus  called  it 
rebirth  and  that  Paul  called  it  a  new  crea- 
tion. Peter  speaks  of  it  as  a  ^^resurrection 
from  the  dead."  Dr.  Dale  accepted  *^ re- 
newal''  as  the  right  word  to  use  in  de- 
scribing the  initial  act  or  process — for  it 
would  seem  that  the  type  of  experience  varies 
widely  between  a  sudden  accession  of  unac- 
customed life  and  impulse,  and  a  gradual 
dawning  of  light  and  unfolding  of  power. 
The  Shorter  Catechism  suggests  another 
term:  ^'Effectual  calling  is  the  work  of  God's 
Spirit,  whereby,  convincing  us  of  our  sin  and 
misery,  enlightening  our  minds  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  Christ,  and  renewing  our  wills,  he 
doth  persuade  and  enable  us  to  embrace  Jesus 
Christ,  freely  offered  to  us  in  the  gospel." 

A  recent  biography  of  Florence  Nightin- 
gale by  Sir  Edward  Cook,  reviewed  at  length 
in  the  ** British  Weekly"  of  November  13, 
1913,  furnishes"  us  most  interesting  facts  in 
the  spiritual  life  of  that  remarkable  woman : 

[79] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

Her  calling  was  emphatically  the  work  of  God's 
Spirit.  It  would  se'em  to  most  that  her  early  circum- 
stances were  supremely  fortunate.  Her  parents  were 
very  wealthy.  .  .  .  They  were  accustomed  to  travel  on 
the  Continent.  They  were  in  the  very  best  society,  and 
met  the  leading  men  of  the  day.  Florence  was  an  ardent 
student  and  scholar,  winning  in  her  personality,  dis- 
tinguished and  elegant  if  not  actually  beautiful.  She 
seems  to  have  been  adored  by  her  own  circle  and  ad- 
mired by  all  who  saw  her.  .  .  .  Her  father  was  a  Uni- 
tarian, and  though  she  herself  for  a  time  conformed 
outwardly  to  the  Church  of  England,  her  opinions  did 
not  square  with  any  of  the  ancient  creeds.  .  .  .  She  be- 
came more  and  more  restless,  more  and  more  weary. 
The  Spirit  of  God  had  called  her.  In  an  autobiograph- 
ical fragment,  written  in  1867,  she  mentions  as  one 
of  the  crises  of  her  inner  life,  that  God  called  her 
to  his  service  on  February  7,  1837,  and  Sir  Edward 
tells  us  that  there  are  later  notes  still  fixing  that  day 
as  the  dawn  of  her  true  life.  She  was  then  seven- 
teen. 

These  tlien  are  but  other  terms-  to  describe 
the  workings  in  men  and  women  of  diverse 
types,  of  a  power  which  is  able  ^Ho  dissolve 
a  life  which  has  all  the  appearance  and  prob- 
ability of  permanence,  and  to  reorganize  it 
by  a  new  principle."  Professor  James,  who 
approaches  the  problems  of  philosophy  and 
inner  experience  in  an  attitude  of  refreshing 

[80] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM  GOD 


candor  and  who  describes  them  in  terms  at 
once  accurate  and  untechnical,  thus  defines 
conversion:  **To  be  converted,  to  be  regen- 
erated, to  receive  grace,  to  experience  re- 
ligion, to  gain  assurance,  are  so  many  phrases 
which  denote  the  process,  gradual  or  sudden, 
by  which  a  life  hitherto  divided,  and  con- 
sciously wrong,  inferior  and  unhappy,  be- 
comes unified  and  consciously  right,  superior 
and  happy,  in  consequence  of  its  firmer  hold 
upon  religious  realities."  Another  modern 
thinker,  less  well  known  than  Professor 
James,  but  no  less  hospitable  to  the  truth, 
speaks  of  rehgion  as  ^^the  inflow  of  the  di- 
vine into  human  life,  and  the  consequent  up- 
lift of  human  liffe  to  the  divine. ' '  This  writer 
has,  uncV)nscio.usly  perhaps,  applied  to  re- 
ligion generally  words  which  best  describe  the 
beginning  of  religious  life  in  the  human  soul. 
A  divine  hand  ' '  throws  open  the  gates  of  new 
life"  to  us,  and*  something  happens  in  the 
human  spirit,  which  has  its  symbol  in  chem- 
istry, when  a  hitherto  chaotic  mass  begins  to 
crystallize,  and  in  biology  when  a  living  cell 

[81] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

begins  to  increase  by  division  and  redivision. 
Motion  is  the*  resultant  of  power.  Life  pro- 
ceeds only  from  life.  A  dead  soul  springs 
into  life  at  tlie  touch  of  that  Power  whence 
all  spiritual  life  proceeds. 

Michelangelo's  fresco  representing  the  cre- 
ation of  man  pictures  the  moment  when  the 
divine  spark  is  first  lighted  in  human  life  at 
the  touch  of  the  Almighty  Hand.  Surely  it 
requires  nothing  less  than  a  touch  of  the 
Creative  Hand  to  restore  the  soul.  Eegener- 
ation  is  the*  restoration  of  the  human  spirit 
by  the  act  of  Him  who  first  breathed  into  man 
^*the  breath  of  life.'^  Kebirth  is  the  work  of 
God 's  inbreathing.  ^  ^  The  wind  bloweth  where 
it  listeth :  ...  so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of 
the  Spirit.^' 

Sick  of  sin  and  weary  with  failures,  we 
long  to  make  a  new  start,  and  talk  of  turning 
over  a  new  leaf.  The  new  start  and  the  fresh 
white  leaf  are  offered  us  at  the  moment  of  our 
re-creation.  The  lines  of  Susan  Coolidge 
thus  become  doubly  dear  to  him  who  stands 
at  the  portal  of  a  better  life : 

[82] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM   GOD 


Every  day  is  a  fresh  beginning, 
Every  morn  is  the  world  made  new. 

Of  all  the  distinctive  ideas  of  Jesus,  per- 
haps the  doctrine  of  new  life  from  God  is  the 
one  most  difficult  for  the  average  man  to  ac- 
cept. ^^How  can  a  man  be  born  when  he  is 
old  V^  As  a  matter  of  fact,  each  added  year 
of  life  after  one  passes  the  age  of  sixteen, 
renders  it  so  much  more  improbable  that  he 
will  be  born  again.  This  much  is  certain. 
All  the  statistics  of  conversion  prove  it. 
There  is  a  time  in  life  when  the  soul  is  so 
impressionable  and  the  will  is  so  flexible  that, 
granted  the  desire  to  be  bom  again,  the  proc- 
ess is  not  attended  with  violent  emotions.  A 
vast  majority  of  all  who  are  consciously  led 
by  the  Spirit  enter  that  consciousness  in 
youth.  There  is  a  comfortably  large  number 
of  cases  of  conversion  in  mature  years,  and 
even  in  old  age,  but  the  normal  age  synchro- 
nizes with  the  first  well-developed  impulses 
of  young  manhood  and  womanhood.  Look, 
for  a  moment,  at  the  words  in  which  a  repre- 
sentative company  of  the  twice-born,  college 

[83] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

students,  eager  young  thinkers,  describe  tlieir 
experiences  of  rebirth  i^ 

"The  opening  of  my  spiritual  eyes  was  a  great  event; 
there  was  no  great  change  otherwise.  I  had  always  done 
as  well  as  I  knew." 

"The  chief  change  was  in  my  inmost  purpose.  I  was 
no  longer  self -centered." 

"The  change  was  marked  and  radical.  I  had  feared 
God,  now  I  loved  him.  I  did  not  rest  in  ceremonies, 
except  as  a  means  of  growth." 

"Then  God  had  been  far  off  in  the  sky,  too  holy  and 
good  to  let  me  get  close  to  him.  Now  he  was  a  tender, 
loving  Father,  and  very  near." 

"When  rising  from  my  knees,  I  exclaimed,  ^Old  things 
have  passed  away  and  all  things  have  become  new,^  it 
was  like  entering  another  world — a  new  state  of  exist- 
ence." 

"I  felt  an  unfolding  of  truth  and  a  revelation  of  God's 
ways.  I  underwent  a  moral  and  intellectual  quicken- 
ing." 

These  are  representative  experiences.  In 
few  cases,  apparently,  among  thoughtful,  de- 
cent-living young  people  is  the  great  change 
accompanied  by  an  emotive  upheaval.  But 
the  expression  *' change  of  heart '^  does  not 
begin  to  exhaust  the  meaning  of  the  experi- 

2  Edwin  Diller  Starbuck,  "The  Psycholo^  of  Religion,"  pp.  119, 
120,   131. 

[84] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM   GOD 


ence,  much  less  does  the  phrase  **  change  of 
mind.'^  It  is  nothing  less  than  a  change  of 
nature :  * '  The  person  emerges  from  a  smaller, 
limited  world  of  existence,  into  a  larger  world 
of  being;  the  individual  learns  to  transfer 
himself  from  a  center  of  self -activity  into  an 
organ  of  revelation  of  universal  being. '^ 
Eegeneration  is,  therefore,  the  emergence  of 
a  new  self.  Individuality  is  not  impaired, 
personality  is  not  dissociated,  but  by  asso- 
ciation with  the  eternal  Self,  by  alliance  with 
Infinite  Personality,  a  spiritual  self  of  which 
before  we  had  been  but  dimly  conscious  if  at 
all,  asserts  its  sovereignty,  and  life  hence- 
forth can  never  be  the  same. 

From  the  days  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  until  now 
the  doctrine  of  new  life  from  God  has  not 
been  without  exemplification  in  any  age.  Cer- 
tain periods  seem  to  be  peculiarly  rich  in  il- 
lustrations, as,  for  instance,  the  age  of  the 
Wesleyan  revival,  and  that  of  the  great 
awakening  under  the  preaching  of  Mr.  Moody. 
But  that  the  power  of  the  divine  Spirit  is  not 
exhausted  is  evident  from  the  current  history 

[85] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

of  tlie  Salvation  Army,  and  conversions  as 
radical  and  revolutionary  as  any  in  White- 
field's  time  are  common  in  every  rescue  mis- 
sion. If  the  truth  were  known  it  would  be 
clear  that  the  same  mighty  Spirit  whose  acts 
are  written  in  the  New  Testament  is  abroad 
in  the  world  to-day  convincing  men  of  sin, 
awakening  some  who  never  went  into  the  far 
country  and  spent  their  substance  riotously, 
to  their  deep  need  of  spiritual  life,  and 
through  the  quiet  workings  of  conscience 
prompting  multitudes  to  seek  to  be  made  par- 
takers of  the  divine  nature.  The  experi- 
ences of  the  young  Japanese,  the  story  of 
whose  illumination  is  strikingly  told  in  a  little 
book  called  ^^The  Life  BeautifuP';  of  Selim, 
son  of  Hassan  Bey,  whose  quest  of  the  living 
God  is  related  by  Henry  Otis  Dwight  in  '*A 
Muslim  Sir  Galahad' ';  and  of  Miss  Emily 
Gregory,  once  associate  professor  of  botany 
at  Bryn  Mawr,  later  on  the  staff  of  the 
Botanical  Department  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  founder  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Botany  in  Barnard  College  in  New 

[86] 


NEW  LIFE  FROM   GOD 


York,  the  awakening  of  whose  religious  na- 
ture is  told  in  ^^A  Scientist's  Confession  of 
Faith,"  a  little  book  full  of  rare  human  in- 
terest— these  are  as  wonderful  and  as  con- 
vincing as  anything  in  all  the  annals  of  the 
Church.  God  still  seeks  man.  Jesus  is  still 
the  Door,  and  as  something  of  the  massive- 
ness  and  splendor  of  a  house  may  be  judged 
by  the  greatness  of  the  entrance,  so  the  spa- 
ciousness and  beauty  of  that  new  life  in  God 
to  which  we  are  called  may  only  be  imagined 
by  the  ampleness  and  glory  of  His  life 
through  Whom  we  enter  into  the  life  of  God. 


[87] 


AN  EFFICIENT  MOTIVE 


IT  is  this  entry  of  the  divine  into  man's  sphere,  with 
its  inversion  of  the  primitive  order  of  things,  that 
first  gives  the  elements  of  the  Christian  life  their  full 
depth  and  force.  Only  thus  can  we  do  equal  justice  to  its 
love  and  gentleness  on  one  hand,  and  to  its  seriousness 
and  truth  on  the  other.  Christian  love  means  very  much 
more  than  is  conveyed  in  the  woefully  shallow  present- 
ment of  it  lately  indulged  in  even  in  popular  romances. 
For  it  is  no  soft  connivance  at  human  weakness  and 
error,  no  embellishing  of  the  events  of  the  world,  no 
Yea  and  Amen  to  every  pronouncement.  It  is  character- 
ised rather  by  an  infinite  seriousness,  demanding  as  it 
does,  a  new  world  and  a  new  life  which  only  the  divine 
Power  can  bestow.  The  task  that  devolves  on  man  is 
not  merely  man's  concern,  a  private  matter  of  his  own 
happiness,  but  it  has  a  far-reaching  effect  on  the  order- 
ing of  th-e  Whole,  and  is  thus  fraught  with  grave  respon- 
sibility.— Rudolph  Eucken,  Christianity  cmd  the  New 
Idealism.    Translated  by  Lucy  Judge  Gibson,  pp.  80,  81. 


AN  EFFICIENT  MOTIVE 

IP  man,  untouched  by  religion,  be  lost;  if 
he  be  spiritually  defective;  if  he  be  far 
from  goodness  and  from  God,  or  rather,  being 
so,  he  needs  two  things  above  all  else,  an  ideal 
and  an  uplift. 

Many  people  fail  to  do  right  because  they 
do  not  know  the  right.  It  is  not  the  function 
of  conscience  to  discern  the  right.  Moral 
judgment  must  do  that ;  then  conscience  bids 
us  do  what  moral  judgment  pronounces  right. 
So  conscience  has  impelled  and  approved 
many  a  wrong  act;  moral  judgment  may  be 
uninstructed  or  misgniided.  Conscience  needs 
not  to  be  educated,  but  needs  only  an  indwell- 
ing spirit  of  righteousness  to  keep  it  awake, 
active,  sensitive.  But  moral  judgment  must 
be  educated.  We  must  learn  to  recognize  the 
true  and  the  good  when  we  see  them.  We 
must  be  furnished  with  a  correct  ideal. 

[93] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

After  long  discipline  the  Hebrew  people 
acquired  a  noble  ethic.  They  were  incom- 
parably above  their  neighbors  in  both  the 
theory  and  practice  of  virtue.  Disraeli  was 
entirely  justified  in  reminding  a  gentleman 
who  had  taunted  him  with  being  a  Jew  that  it 
was  no  reproach  to  belong  to  a  race  that  was 
building  marble  temples  and  singing  match- 
less songs  when  the  savage  races  of  northern 
Europe  were  drinking  the  blood  of  their  ene- 
mies slain  in  battle. 

Read  the  thirty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah  and 
judge  the  moral  standing  of  the  Hebrew  peo- 
ple: ^^He  that  walketh  righteously,  and 
speaketh  uprightly;  he  that  despiseth  the 
gain  of  oppressions,  that  shaketh  his  hands 
from  holding  of  bribes,  that  s.toppeth  his 
ears  from  hearing  of  blood,  and  shutteth  his 
eyes  from  seeing  evil;  he  shall  dwell  on 
high.^'  Lofty  ideal  is  that,  yet  not  loftier 
than  the  picture  of  God's  gentleman  pre- 
sented by  a  psalmist  two  centuries  earlier 
than  Isaiah :  *  ^  He  that  walketh  uprightly,  and 
Vv^orketh    righteousness,    and    speaketh    the 

[94] 


AN  EFFICIENT  MOTIVE 

truth  in  his  heart  ...  he  that  sweareth  to 
his  own  hurt,  and  changeth  not  .  .  .  shall 
never  be  moved.'* 

But  if  there  is  lacking  in  the  ethics  of  the 
Old  Testament  anything  of  humility  and  ten- 
derness, anything  of  the  altruistic  outlook, 
the  broad  view  of  human  brotherhood,  and 
social  service,  we  have  it  in  the  highest  de- 
gree and  fullest  measure  in  the  life  and  teach- 
ings of  Jesus.  There  is  nothing  lacking  in 
the  system  of  morals  contained  in  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures.  The  new  ideal  is  the  old, 
perfected,  spiritualized,  lifted  to  a  purer  air 
and  a  nobler  view.  It  is  the  testimony  of  its 
keenest  critics  that  Christianity  offers  us  a 
flawless  code.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  in  thie 
preface  to  his  *^Data  of  Ethics,* ''objects  that 
it  is  too  perfect — that  it  mocks  and  baffles  us 
by  its  very  perfection. 

It  must  be  granted,  however,  that  Christi- 
anity is  not  alone  in  its  advocacy  of  excellent 
ethics.  There  is  Confucianism — not  a  re- 
ligion, it  may  be,  but  a  moral  system  which 
has  taken  the  place  of  religion  in  innumer- 

[95] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

able  lives.  Let  it  be  conceded  that  the  ethical 
code  of  Confucius  is  admirable.  But  shall 
we  not  look  behind  the  code  at  its  philosophy! 
What  vital  force  does  the  Chinese  sage  rec- 
ognize whereby  to  make  his  code  effective? 
What  motive  does  he  seek  to  supply  his  dis- 
ciples? A  single  instance  will  suffice  to  show 
by  what  celestial  diameters  he  is  separated 
from  the  Founder  of  Christianity.  Confucius 
teaches  the  duty  of  meighborly  kindness,  but 
shrewdly  suggests  that  the  duty  is  really  to 
oneself,  inasmuch,  as  we  may  be  in  need  some- 
time. An  appeal  to  self-love.  Honor  your 
parents  and  your  children  will  honor  you. 
How  inexpressibly  above  this  is  the  admoni- 
tion, obey  your  parents  in  the  Lord :  for  this 
is  right!  Even  the  Mosaic  commandment 
lacks  this  fine  spirit,  with  its  judicious  re- 
minder of  temporal  reward,  ^^That  thy  days 
may  be  long  upon  the  land."  Eead  the  par- 
able of  the  Good  Samaritan.  There  is  pure 
philanthropy,  disinterested  benevolence,  with 
never  a  suggestion  that  we  may  ourselves  fall 
among  thieves. 

[96] 


AN  EFFICIENT   MOTIVE 

There  is  a  uniqne  and  significant  phrase 
occurring  often  in  the  Psalms,  ascribing  to 
Jehovah  the  quahty  of  loving-kindness.  The 
New  Testament  encourages  us  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  that  divine  quality,  unselfish  goodness, 
and  affirms  the  sufficiency  of  love  as  the 
ground  of  obligation.  Love  is  the  great  word 
in  the  messages  of  Jesus,  even  as  it  was  the 
grfeat  force  in  His  ministry.  The  apostles  so 
understood  it.  ^'AVe  love  him,  because  he 
first  loved  us.''  ^'The  love  of  Christ  con- 
straineth  us." 

President  Mark  Hopkins,  of  Williams  Col- 
lege, in  his  great  book,  ^^The  Law  of  Love 
and  Love  as  a  Law,''  argues  the  supreme  ac- 
cent of  Christianity  upon  love  as  a  motive, 
operating  in  every  possible  phase  of  life,  cov- 
ering the  whole  domain  of  morals. 

^  ^  ^  'TT  W 

Next  to  a  moral  ideal,  man  needs  a  moral 
uplift,  a  constant  impulse,  prompting  him  to 
approach  that  standard.  There  is,  in  Chris- 
tianity, provision  for  both  these  fundamental 
needs.    In  Jesus,  behold  the  Man!    And  as 

[97] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

to  the  motive,  the  inner  energy,  the  power 
not  ourselves  which  we  may  make  our 
own,  whose  operation  in  our  lives  brings  us 
nearer  and  nearer  daily  to  the  mark  of  our 
high  calling,  is  it  not  in  this — the  love  of 
Christ? 

This  phrase  has  a  threefold  meaning:  the 
love  of  Christ  for  us,  our  love  for  Him,  and 
His  love  in  us.  This  it  is  that  constraineth. 
But  is  not  constraint  equivalent  to  coercion? 
Then  I  will  not  be  coerced ;  I  am  free,  and  no 
power  shall  enslave  me !  But  does  it  not  all 
depend  on  whether  the  coercive  power  be 
from  without  or  from  within?  If  the  force 
be  external  we  may  resist  it,  but  if  it  be  a 
moral  energy  within  ourselves,  we  may  gladly 
yield.  Hunger  constrains  us  to  eat,  yet  we 
do  not  need  to  be  driven  to  the  breakfast  ta- 
ble. Love  constrains  a  mother  to  minister  to 
her  children,  and  she  becomes  a  willing  serv- 
ant all  her  days.  Yet  is  she  ever  so  free  as 
when  she  is  serving  those  she  loves?  We 
sometimes  speak  of  being  in  duty  bound  to 
do  such  and  such  things.      Duty  binds  us, 

[98] 


AN  EFFICIENT   MOTIVE 

conscience  binds  ns,  gratitude  binds  us,  faith 
binds  us,  affection  binds  us, 

"Captive,  yet  divinely  free." 

It  is  still  a  debated  question  what  is  the 
strongest  human  motive.  Sixty-three  years 
ago,  the  trackless  prairies  of  the  West  were 
dotted  with  emigrants'  wagons  on  their  way 
to  the  coast.  It  took  five  months  to  cover  the 
distance  from  the  Mississippi  to  California, 
but  thousands  made  the  journey.  Gold  was 
there.  Neither  Alaska  snows  nor  desert  suns 
have  terror  for  the  modern  argonaut. 

Then  there  is  the  passion  for  discovery,  the 
desire  to  explore  the  unknown.  Peary  braves 
the  hardships  of  the-  far  white  North,  Landor 
penetrates  the  mountain  fastnesses  of  re- 
motest Thibet,  and  William  Edward  Geil 
crosses  Africa  at  the  equator. 

But  what  men  have  not  been  willing  to  do 
for  treasure,  or  knowledge,  or  fame,  they 
have  been  willing  to  do  for  love.  They  have 
gladly  eaten  the  bread  of  affliction  and 
drunken  the  waters  of  bitterness  all  their 

[99] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 

days;  they  have  taken  the  places  of  others 
in  lifelong  servitude;  they  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  object  of  their  affection 
with  total  effacement  of  self. 

"As  the  ancient  seer  saith — 
Only  love  is  strong  as  death; 
Aye,  and  stronger  far  than  life, 
Brave  as  battle,  stout  as  strife, 
Dearer  than  the  things  we  see, 
Planted  in  eternity !" 

And  all  that  men  have  been  willing  to  do 
for  love,  for  human  love,  and  more,  men  have 
done  and  are  doing,  constrained  by  the  love 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Father  Damien  among  the 
lepers  is  a  good  instance,  though  not  the  only 
example  by  any  means.  He  is  type  of  a  very 
large  class.  The  tribute  of  Eobert  Louis 
Stevenson  was  well  deserved.  Would  there 
were  some  Stevenson  to  celebrate  the  heroism 
of  many  another  comrade  of  the  Cross  whose 
life  has  been  devoted  to  the  service  of  those 
whom  the  rfest  of  the  world  forgets,  or  re- 
members only  to  pass  by  on  the  other  side. 
Willis  Hotchkiss*  goes  to  a  remote  district  of 

[100] 


AN  EFFICIENT   MOTIVE 

Central  AfricU  because  there  is  a  tribe  who 
were  as  sheep  without  a  shepherd.  Mary 
Eeed,  an  Ohio  girl,  is  among  the  lepers  of 
India.  The  daughter  of  one  of  America's 
most  gifted  literary  men  is  devoting  herself 
to  the  care  of  the  inmates  of  a  cancer  hospital. 
What  is  her  inspiration  as  she  breathes  the 
fetid  air  and  dresses  the  festering  sores  of 
those  from  whose  presence  we  naturally 
shrink?    The  love  of  Christ. 

In  the  darkest  spots  of  earth's  darkest  con- 
tinents and  islands,  a  host  of  men  and  women, 
the  sons  and  daughters  of  comfort  and  cul- 
ture, are  d'evoting  themselves  uncalculatingly 
to  the  uplift  of  submerged  races,  healing  and 
teaching  and  preaching  in  Jesus'  name.  Let 
the  world  wag  its  head  at  missionary  senti- 
ment, joining  in  Sidney  Smith's  characteriza- 
tion of  the  whole  missionary  scheme  as  the 
dream  of  a  dreamer  who  dreams  he  is  dream- 
ing, but  until  the  world  shows  us  something 
braver,  finer,  nobler,  more  heroic  than  the 
missionary  movement  of  the  modem  Church, 
the  world  would  do  well  to  put  its  finger  on 

[  101  ] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

its  scornful  lips  and  pray  for  the  grace  of 
silence. 

The  power  of  the  love  of  Christ  as  a  mo- 
tive in  the  lives  of  his  disciples,  has  it  any- 
parallel  in  history!'  Let  Professor  William 
James  answer:  ^^The  best  fruits  of  religious 
experiences  are  the  best  things  that  history 
has  to  show."  Every  great  life  has  a  great 
motive.  Alexander's  and  Caesar's  and  Na- 
poleon's was  the  love  of  conquest.  The  call 
of  the  blood  in  the  veins  of  the  warriors  is 
to  the  field  of  murder  set  to  martial  music. 
The  passion  of  Garibaldi  was  desire  for  the 
unification  and  freedom  of  Italy,  to  plant 
upon  the  ruins  of  old  Kome  a  new  and  im- 
perial standard.  The  passion  of  Garrison 
and  Phillips  was  the  love  of  freedom.  It  de- 
mands a  great  motive  to  call  forth  from  a 
great  nature  its  worthiest  deeds.  Behold 
what  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ  can  do!  It 
transforms  a  narrow  zealot  like  Saul  into  the 
tireless  apostle  of  a  catholic  faith,  and  makes 
him  the  most  influential  figure  in  history  this 
side  of  Calvary.     It  endows  the  tongue  of  ' 

[  102  ] 


AN   EFFICIENT   MOTIVE 

Chrj^sostom  with  incomparable  eloquence, 
and  tips  the  pen  of  Augustine  with  resistless 
logic.  It  anoints  Savonarola  the  prophet  and 
saviour  of  Florence.  It  lights  the  torch  of 
Luther.  It  penetrates  and  possesses  the  mind 
of  Calvin.  It  energizes  the  will  of  Knox  and 
warms  the  heart  of  Wesley.  It  nerves  the 
martyrs  of  modern  China  when  frenzied  mobs 
cry,  ^  ^  Death  to  all  Christians ! "  It  quickens 
the  pulses  of  six  thousand  of  the  choicest  of 
our  university  men  and  women  as  they  offer 
themselves  for  service  where  their  Lord  most 
needs  them.  The  busy  man,  already  bur- 
dened with  affairs,  assumes  a  new  office  in  the 
Church — the  love  of  Christ  constraineth  him. 
The  timid  woman  who  trembles  when  she 
hears  her  own  voice  in  public,  accepts  the 
leadership  of  a  Bible  class — the  love  of 
Christ  constraineth  her.  The  young  man, 
ambitious  to  get  ahead,  turns  from  the  path 
of  probable  success  because  he  cannot  longer 
pursue  it  and  be  true  to  his  ethical  ideal — 
the  love  of  Christ  constraineth  him.  The 
youth  full  of  the  love  of  life  dashes  the  cup 

[103] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

of  pleasure  from  his  lips,  denying  himself 
daily  for  the  love  of  Christ. 

If  the  love  of  Christ  can  do  so  much,  shall 
we  not  carry  it^ — or  be  carried  by  it — ^up  to 
life 's  last  conscious  hour,  and  say  when  earth 
recedes,  as  the  lad  in  Dickens'  story,  '*It  is 
time  to  go  to  Him  who  loves  me''?!  What 
shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  which 
is  in  Christ  Jesus,  our  Lord? 

This,  then,  is  the  fifth  distinctive  idea  of 
Jesus.  He  says,  ^^I  am  the  way  to  God,"  and 
He  builds  His  empire  in  the  hearts  of  men, 
the  eternal  Lover  of  souls  in  a  sense  in  which 
it  is  true  of  none  other. 


[104] 


VI 


THE  UNBROKEN  CONTINUITY 
OF  LIFE 


HERE  the  brief  in  immortality  must  rest  before 
the  revelation  of  the  personal  life  in  its  full 
power,  at  its  highest  and  its  best  in  the  Son  of  Man. 
Here  reasoning  from  nature  ends,  and  faith  abides,  at 
the  last  ascent  of  life,  where  He  to  whom  the  Spirit  was 
given  without  measure  looked  up  into  the  heavenlies  and 
knew  the  Father.  ^Ye  cannot  live  and  die  as  though  the 
sun  had  not  risen,  for  the  light  of  His  spirit  now  fills 
our  skies.  Modern  science  will  not  think  the  whole 
process  and  intent  of  evolution  through,  until  it  shall 
come  to  the  Christ,  and  behold  all  that  the  Jesus  of  his- 
tory has  become  and  now  is  in  the  light  of  the  world. 
There  is  no  full  and  final  answer  to  our  questionings  of 
life  and  death  and  the  whole  to  come  except  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  perfect  manifestation  of  life  in  the  Man  of 
men,  as  we  behold  His  glory,  even  the  glory  of  the  Father 
which  was  from  the  beginning — the  glory  that  invests 
all  lives  which  are  lived  in  the  same  mind  that  was  in 
Him. — Newman  Smyth,  Modern  Belief  in  Immortality, 
pp.  93,  94. 


VI 

THE  UNBEOKEN  CONTINUITY  OP  LIFE 

DISGUISE  the  term  as  we  may,  comfort 
ourselves  as  we  do  with  symbols  and 
parables  from  nature's  book,  death  seems  in 
many  instances  an  unrelieved  calamity.  To 
die  in  infancy  or  youth,  as  many  do,  before 
life  has  well  begun ;  to  die  in  middle  age  and 
leave  one's  work  undone;  to  say  good-by  to 
a  world  of  beauty  and  bounty,  strikes  us  as 
nothing  else  and  nothing  less  than  remediless 
disaster.  Nothing  within  the  range  of  pos- 
sible human  experience,  not  even  sin,  is  so 
difficult  to  reconcile  with  the  doctrine  of  a 
moral  universe  as  such  a  death.  Sin  is  the 
defeat  of  a  soul,  but  out  of  defeat,  out  of  suc- 
cessive defeats,  may  come  ultimate  victory. 
Moral  redemption  is  possible.  The  hope  of 
recovery  saves  us  from  despair  at  sight  of  the 
destruction  wrought  by  evil. 

[109] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

"Noble  souls,  through  dust  and  heat 
Rise  from  disaster  and  defeat  the  stronger; 
And,  conscious  still  of  the  divine 
Within  them,  lie  on  earth  supine  no  longer." 

So,  over  against  the  word  sin  we  write  the 
greater  word  salvation.  This  is  the  bright 
light  behind  the  black  cloud.  But  what  of 
that  other  black  cloud  we  call  death!  What 
light  can  dispel  the  shadow  it  casts  across  our 
paths  f  Is  there  any  thought  or  truth — ^which 
is  the  reality  back  of  thought — consideration 
of  which  renders  death  other  than  it  seems? 
There  is.  Christianity  gives  us  a  word  for 
this  reality.  Over  against  the  word  death, 
Christianity  writes  the  word  immortality. 

But  here  we  stand  on  common  ground  with 
certain  of  the  other  great  religions  of  the 
world.  Here,  indeed,  we  find  ourselves  in 
company  with  some  of  the  leaders  of  philo- 
sophic thought  who  may  not  be  regarded  as 
religion  founders. 

It  cannot  be  affirmed  that  the  doctrine  of 
human  immortality  is  one  of  the  distinctive 
ideas  of  Jesus.    But  it  can  be  affirmed,  and 

[110] 


UNBROKEN    CONTINUITY    OF    LIFE 

is  maintained,  that  in  Christianity  the  truth 
is  tanght  with  a  unique  degree  of  clearness 
and  cogency ;  and  that  the  Founder  of  Chris- 
tianity and  those  immediate  followers  of  His 
who  derived  their  ideas  personally  from  Him, 
who  were  the  earliest  leaders  of  the  Chris- 
tian movement,  assert  the  reality  of  immor- 
tality with  a  confidence  which  lacks  nothing 
of  certainty.  On  this  subject  Jesus  spoke 
plainly  where  others  have  spoken  vaguely, 
and,  after  him,  his  apostles  leave  not  doubt- 
ful what  others  have  left  doubtful,  the  af- 
firmation of  the  survival  of  personal  con- 
sciousness after  death.  So,  Jesus  differs 
from  other  teachers  not  so  much  in  the  idea 
of  a  future  life  as  in  His  mental  attitude  to- 
ward it.  He  said  much  of  it,  but  He  taught 
more  about  it  by  what  He  did  not  say. 

As  circumstantial  evidence  may  be,  and 
often  is  in  every  respect  as  substantial  and 
convincing  as  direct  evidence,  so  the  argu- 
ment from  silence  may  be  as  valid  as  any 
verbal  proof,  or  process  of  logic.  It  is  like 
the  *' argument  by  withdrawal."    For  exam- 

[  111  1 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 

pie,  if  you  have  a  theory  that  a  certain  stone 
in  an  archway  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
structure,  and  if  one  who  has  a  theory  that  it 
is  not  a  necessary  part  removes  it,  and  if  at 
once  the  structure  falls  or  is  manifestly  in 
danger  of  falling,  or  obviously  imperfect,  you 
need  not  call  witnesses  to  confirm  your  the- 
ory. It  is  confirmed  *^by  withdrawal/'  In 
law,  certain  documents  are  to  be  construed  in 
such  and  such  a  way  in  the  absence  of  any 
provision  to  the  contrary.  That  is  to  say, 
certain  factors  are  read  into  the  paper  be- 
cause they  are,  by  assumption,  already  there. 

In  the  common  affairs  of  daily  life  and 
communication,  we  interpret  silence  of  a  cer- 
tain kind  as  equivalent  to  speech.  You  have 
a  telegram  one  morning  from  a  friend,  say- 
ing, ^  ^  I  will  arrive  at  eleven  o  'clock. '  ^  In  the 
absence  of  other  information  you  conclude  he 
means  ^^at  eleven  o'clock  to-day '' — not  to- 
night, not  to-morrow.  You  reason  thus,  **0f 
course  he  means  this  eleven  o  'clock ;  if  it  were 
not  so  he  would  have  told  me.^' 

You  left  home  for  business  at  eight  o'clock 

[112] 


UNBROKEN    CONTINUITY    OF    LIFE 

in  the  morning.  You  met  your  wife  at  twelve, 
had  luncheon  with  her  and  parted  at  one. 
How  do  you  know  the  house  was  not  robbed 
an  hour  after  you  left  this  morning?  How 
do  you  know  the  children  were  well  when  your 
wife  left  home  f  Yet  you  never  even  inquired 
whether  burglars  had  carried  away  the  sil- 
ver or  whether  the  children  had  come  down 
with  the  measles.  You  answer,  **I  know  that 
all  was  well  for  had  it  not  been  so  she  would 
have  told  me. "  What  an  eloquent  interpreter 
of  silence  you  are! 

Your  boy  went  to  college  in  September. 
He  had  enough  money  to  pay  his  tuition,  buy 
his  books  and  pay  his  board  for  three  months. 
He  seemed  entirely  willing  to  go,  trusting  you 
to  send  him  a  remittance  for  his  second  term, 
asking  for  no  bond  to  guarantee  his  continu- 
ance at  college.  He  knew  you  expected  to 
help  him  all  through  his  course;  if  it  were 
not  so  you  would  have  told  him. 

Your  children  had  their  breakfast  this 
morning.  They  did  not  manifest  any  great 
anxiety  about  where  the  dinner  was  to  come 

[  113  ] 


THE   DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

from.  They  expect  you  to  provide  food  for 
them.  You  know  where  the  provisions  are, 
and  where  more  may  be  secured  from  day  to 
day.  If  it  were  not  so  you  would  have  told 
them.  Perhaps  this  may  be  called  the  argu- 
ment from  silence. 

Now  Jesus  used  this  argument  in  teaching 
His  disciples  to  believe  in  God.  He  never  rea- 
soned it  out  with  them,  but  He  talked  to  them 
about  God  as  if  God  were,  and  as  if  He  were 
a  Father.  If  it  were  not  so  He  would  have 
told  them.  They  believed  in  a  future  life. 
He  never  took  time  to  reason  that  out  with 
them.  But  He  talked  to  them  as  if  the  future 
life  were  as  certain  as  the  present ;  as  if  the 
earth  were  but  one  of  many  dwelling  places 
God  has  prepared  for  His  children.  He  spoke 
of  His  plans  for  the  future  as  if  all  time  were 
His.  He  talked  of  centuries  and  ages  as  we 
speak  of  minutes  and  days.  He  acted  as  if 
death  were  no  more  than  passing  into  an- 
other room.  At  last  they  came  to  take  the 
same  view  of  death.  The  black  specter  in 
their  path  became  a  mere  shadow.    The  river 

[114] 


UNBROKEN    CONTINUITY    OF    LIFE 

dwindled  into  a  mere  brooklet  to  be  crossed 
with  a  single  step.  He  let  them  hold  that  view 
of  death.  We  believe  it  was  the  true  one.  If 
it  were  not  so  He  would  have  told  them. 

The  affirmation  of  immortality  was  not  a 
novelty.  Socrates  and  Plato  had  affirmed  it. 
But  they  had  to  argue  it,  and  right  well  they 
did  so.  The  attitude  of  Jesus  was  that  of 
calm  confidence  in  the  unbroken  continuity  of 
life.  In  this  He  is  unique.  He  had  no  need 
to  reason  out  a  truth.  He  possessed  truth  as 
an  attribute,  not  as  an  act. 

Our  confidence  in  immortality  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  founded  as  that  of  Jesus  was.  He 
saw  the  whole  circle  of  life,  whereas  we  see 
but  a  little  segment,  a  broken  arc.  Like 
Plato,  and  like  Paul,  we  must  reason  out  our 
faith.  But  our  confidence  may  be  kindled  by 
His  confidence.  He  was  One  who  never 
doubted;  One,  who  knowing  what  a  great 
tyrant  death  is,  calmly  looked  on  death  as  if 
it  were  but  an  incident  in  life,  an  incident 
like  sorrow,  to  be  faced  courageously,  but  not 
feared;    an  incident  like  pain,  to  be  borne 

[115] 


THE   DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 

patiently;  like  doubt,  to  be  dispelled;  like 
sickness,  to  be  cured;  like  darkness,  to  be 
passed  through. 

If  you  have  ever  been  at  sea  in  a  storm  you 
know  how  all  eyes  watch  the  captain.  If  he 
is  calm,  so  are  the  passengers.  If  he  looks 
troubled,  they  are  troubled.  Look  at  Jesus 
when  the  shadows  of  death  were  gathering 
around  Him.  His  friends  were  few.  His  ene- 
mies were  many  and  strong.  His  ministry 
had  been  brief.  Yet  with  the  Cross  in  sight. 
He  speaks  as  serenely  as  any  king  on  his  way 
to  coronation.  He  speaks  of  His  Kingdom, 
of  his  conquest,  of  conquests  yet  to  be.  If 
He  could  so  speak  on  the  eve  of  His  death, 
surely  we  may  fare  on,  all  unperturbed  by 
thoughts  of  the  narrow  bed  under  the  green, 
*^ hoping,  and  assuredly  believing'^  as  Shaks- 
pere  wrote  in  his  last  will  and  testament,  '  *  to 
be  made  partaker  of  life  everlasting." 

When  did  Jesus  ever  do  or  say  anything 
that  may  be  interpreted  as  teaching  that  death 
is  the  end  of  life?  The  little  daughter  of 
Jairus  was  dead  to  all  her  friends,  but  she 

[116] 


UNBROKEN    CONTINUITY    OF    LIFE 

was  not  dead  to  Him.  She  was  asleep,  and 
He  had  but  to  awaken  her.  The  son  of  the 
widow  of  Nain  was  dead  to  his  mother,  but 
in  Jesns'  view  he  had  simply  passed  into  an- 
other room,  and  had  but  to  be  recalled.  There 
is  Another  Eoom.  Lazarus  had  entered  that 
room  and  returned  at  Jesus '  call — still  Laza- 
rus. So  there  is  nothing  in  the  Other  Eoom 
to  destroy  or  impair  personality.  The  line 
of  life  is  undeflected.  If  it  were  not  so  He 
would  have  told  us. 

I  stood  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac  one 
morning  in  March.  The  river  was  cold,  and 
the  air  was  warm,  and  the  mist  rose  from  the 
river  and  concealed  the  tops  of  the  tallest 
buildings.  I  looked  at  the  Washington  Monu- 
ment. It  seemed  to  end  about  two  hundred 
feet  above  the  ground.  If  I  had  not  seen  it 
before  in  its  completion,  I  might  have  judged 
two  hundred  feet  to  be  the  height  of  the  shaft, 
but  I  knew  it  was  higher  than  that.  Indeed 
I  had  ascended  it  and  it  took  but  a  moment 
of  time  for  imagination  to  reconstruct  the  in- 
visible part  of  the  monolith.    It  was  an  un- 

[117] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

broken  shaft,  even  though  the  larger  part  of 
it  was  invisible.  Such  was  Jesus'  view  of 
life.  The  mists  of  death  never  obscured  its 
unbroken  continuity. 

If  His  view  of  life  be  the  correct  one,  then 
death  is  but  a  mist,  a  cloud,  and  they  who 
pass  out  of  our  sight  pass  through  the  cloud 
as  our  soldiers  did  who  led  the  Union  line  far 
up  the  slopes  of  Lookout  Mountain.  They 
planted  their  banner  above  the  clouds.  To 
them  the  clouds  were  no  barriers.  To  us  who 
follow  Jesus,  death  is  no  barrier.  He  planted 
His  victorious  banner  above  the  clouds,  on  an 
immortal  height,  to  which  He  calls  us  as  He 
bids  us  follow  Him. 

Perhaps  the  force  of  this  argument  for  im- 
mortality will  appeal  to  us  all  the  more  pow- 
erfully when  we  remember  that  Jesus  was  an 
absolutely  candid  teacher  of  the  truth.  He 
assumed  to  lead  His  people  into  all  essential 
truth.  So  He  was  under  every  obligation  to 
disabuse  the  minds  of  His  disciples  of  errors 
into  which  they  had  been  led  by  others.  This 
is  exactly  what  He  did.    He  was  constantly 

[  118  ] 


UNBROKEN    CONTINUITY    OF    LIFE 

correcting'  their  conceptions  of  things  reli- 
gious. They  believed  in  the  future  life.  He 
never  rebuked  them  for  it.  He  never  warned 
them  that  they  were  cherishing  a  false  hope. 
He  had  been  cruel  beyond  belief  to  call  them 
to  martyrdom  in  the  belief  that  the  moment 
of  their  death  was  to  be  the  moment  of  their 
victory,  if  He  had  not  Himself  shared  their 
undying  hope.  They  may  have  had  their  mo- 
ments of  doubt  and  wavering.  He  never  had. 
They  hoped.  He  knew.  He  was  conscious  of 
supreme  superiority  to  every  limitation  of 
time.  To  Him  time  was  one  eternal  present, 
and  life  one  uninterrupted  line. 

Death  is  the  result  of  organic  change.  The 
spirit  is  not  organic.  What,  then,  can  death 
do  f    It  can  release  the  spirit.    That  is  all. 

"Never  the  spirit  was  born; 
The  spirit  will  cease  to  be  never; 
Never  was  time  it  was  not; 
End  and  beginning  are  dreams; 
Birthless  and  hopeless  and  changeless 
Remaineth  the  spirit  forever; 
Death  hath  not  touched  it  at  all, 
Dead  though  the  house  of  it  seems." 

[119] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 

You  may  take  a  berth  on  a  southbound 
train  in  the  midst  of  a  snowstorm.  The  last 
sounds  you  hear  will  be  the  furious  wind  and 
the  dashing  sleet.  In  the  morning  you  will 
awaken  in  a  land  of  soft  breezes  and  blue 
skies.  In  another  day  you  will  see  the  orange 
trees  in  bloom  and  hear  the  mocking  birds 
make  melody  in  the  silvery  dawn. 

It  is  a  parable  of  life  and  death.  There  is 
an  old  prayer  beginning,  **0  Thou  who  callest 
Thy  people  to  pass  through  death  that  they 
may  see  Thy  face.''  Jesus  confirms  the 
longing  and  vindicates  the  hope  which  others 
have  laboriously  striven  to  prove  probable. 
And  unless  we  are  greatly  deceived  He  did 
^'pass  through  death,''  He  did  emerge  un- 
hurt, and  lives  until  this  day  in  the  Heaven 
of  heavens,  and  in  that  Kingdom  He  has  set 
up  in  pure  and  humble  hearts. 


[120] 


vn 

THE  DISTINCTIVE  PERSONALITY 
OF  JESUS 


THAT  by  which  the  divinity  of  Jesus  is  seen  to  be 
not  a  mere  logical  addendum  to  Christianity  but 
an  integTal  part  of  Christianity  itself  is  simply  these 
meanings  of  the  fact  of  Christ  which  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing. What  the  Christian  man  finds  he  receives  from 
Jesus  is  not  simply  teaching  about  God,  but  is  a  life 
and  power  that  are  of  God  himself.  He  finds  in  the 
fact  of  Christ  all  he  looks  to  find  in  God.  As  he  reads 
the  definition  of  eternal  life  as  to  "know  thee  (that  is 
God)  .  .  .  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast  sent,"  he  is 
quite  unable  religiously  to  maintain  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  two.  He  finds  God  not  beyond  Christ,  but  in 
Him.  In  the  very  human  life  and  person  of  Jesus  we 
find  not  only  a  human  life  and  person  that  direct  us  to 
a  higher  source  of  power;  we  find  already  there  the 
presence  and  power  of  what  declares  itself  to  be  not 
less  than  God  Himself.  When  Jesus  deals  with  us  and 
works  within  us.  He  does  what  only  God  can  do.  All 
Christian  experience  is  nothing  if  it  is  not  this.  And 
if  this  be  so,  then,  again,  we  can  only  in  one  way  say 
what  Jesus  is.  As  Herrmann  aptly  puts  it,  "when  we 
confess  His  deity,  we  simply  give  Him  His  right  name." 
What  other  name  can  we  give  to  One  who  is  for  us  and 
in  us  what  assuredly  only  God  can  be? — P.  Carnegie 
Simpson,  The  Fact  of  Christ,  pp.  130,  131. 


VII 

THE  DISTINCTIVE  PERSONALITY 
OF  JESUS 

IT  is  on  record  that  certain  officers  were 
sent  to  arrest  Jesus  and  bring  Him  before 
a  committee  to  be  examined  as  to  the  pur- 
pose of  His  teachings  and  their  possible  ef- 
fect upon  the  people.  The  officers  saw  Jesus 
and  heard  Him,  but  returned  without  their 
Prisoner.  *^  Why  have  ye  not  brought  him?'' 
they  were  asked.  Their  reply  was,  '^  Never 
man  spake  like  this  man.''  This,  in  effect, 
is  the  unconscious  testimony  of  all  who  came 
close  to  Jesus — close  enough  to  hear  Him 
in  parable  or  invitation  or  warning  or 
promise. 

We  have  studied  the  great  ideas  of  Jesus 
which  have  no  adequate  parallel  in  any  other 
of  the  religions  of  the  world  that  offer  them- 
selves in  opposition  to  Christianity  or  in  com- 
petition with  it.    Now,  considering  His  mes- 

[  125  ] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

sage  as  a  whole,  these  qualities  distinguish 
it  from  the  teachings  of  other  sages  and 
philosophers:  its  transparent  simplicity;  its 
self-assertive  authority;  its  absolute  cer- 
tainty, that  is,  the  absence  from  it  of  any 
^Ventured  assertion,'^  and  its  wholesome 
sanity. 

The  best  literature  suffers,  necessarily, 
from  translation  into  foreign  tongues,  how- 
ever flexible  or  copious  those  tongues  may  be. 
But  turned  into  whatsoever  mold  of  lan- 
guage they  may  be,  the  teachings  of  Jesus  are 
so  plain  that  any  man  of  ordinary  under- 
standing, however  untutored  his  mind  may 
be,  need  not  err  therein.  The  recorded  words 
of  Jesus  are  few,  but  they  are  like  a  gushing 
fountain  in  the  heart  of  the  hills,  in  whose 
pure  and  unexhausted  depths  countless  rivers 
have  their  source.  Moreover,  Jesus  assumed 
an  authority  which  differenced  Him  from  all 
the  mere  prophets  who  had  preceded  Him  and 
all  the  mere  apostles  who  succeeded  Him. 
They  quoted  the  opinions  of  the  ancients,  and 
stood  upon  precedents.     Jesus  prefaced  his 

[126] 


PERSONALITY  OF  JESUS 

great  sayings  with,  **Ye  have  heard  that  it 
hath  been  said,  .  .  .  but  I  say  unto  you/' 
He  created  precedents.  Then  the  positiveness 
of  His  affirmations  is  refreshing.  His  preface 
often  was,  ** Verily,  verily,''  a  Hebraism  of 
superlative  assurance.  Nothing  that  Jesus 
said  has  become  obsolete  in  the  light  of  sub- 
sequent knowledge.  Professor  Romanes  thus 
puts  it  in  ** Thoughts  on  Religion": 

One  of  the  strongest  pieces  of  objective  evidence  in 
favor  of  Christianity  is  not  sufficiently  enforced  by 
apologists.  Indeed  I  am  not  aware  that  I  have  ever 
seen  it  mentioned.  It  is  the  absence  from  the  biography 
of  Christ  of  any  doctrines  which  the  subsequent  growth 
of  human  knowledge — whether  in  natiu*al  science,  ethics, 
political  economy,  or  elsewhere — has  had  to  discount. 
This  negative  argTiment  is  really  almost  as  strong  as  is 
the  positive  one  from  what  Christ  did  teach.  For  when 
we  consider  what  a  large  number  of  sayings  are  recorded 
of — or  at  least  attributed  to — Him,  it  becomes  most  re- 
markable that  in  literal  truth  there  is  no  reason  why  any 
of  His  words  should  ever  pass  away  in  the  sense  of  be- 
coming obsolete.  .  .  .  Contrast  Jesus  Christ  in  this  re- 
spect with  other  thinkers  of  like  antiquity.  Even  Plato, 
who,  though  some  four  hundred  years  before  Christ  in 
point  of  time,  was  greatly  in  advance  of  Him  in  respect 
of  philosophic  thought,  is  nowhere  in  this  respect  as 
compared  with  Christ.  Read  the  Dialog-ues,  and  see  how 
enormous  is  the  contrast  with  the  Gospels  in  respect  of 

[127] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

errors  of  all  kinds,  reaching  even  to  absurdity  in  re- 
spect of  reason,  and  to  sayings  shocking  to  the  moral 
sense.  Yet  this  is  confessedly  the  highest  level  of  human 
reason  on  the  lines  of  spirituality  when  unaided  by 
alleged  revelation. 

While  the  personality  of  Jesus  is  not  nec- 
essarily included  in  a  discussion  of  His  teach- 
ings, nevertheless  we  may  very  appropriately 
follow  a  survey  of  His  doctrines  with  a  study 
of  His  character.  On  the  eve  of  His  triumphal 
entry  into  Jerusalem  the  whole  city  was 
stirred  and  one  question  sprang  from  every 
mind  to  every  tongue,  **Who  is  thisT'  This 
has  been  the  inquiry  of  the  ages.  There  is 
no  more  pressing  problem  of  to-day.  No  one 
can  read  the  New  Testament  without  con- 
fronting it.  Indeed,  no  one  can  review  the 
history  of  what  we  call  Christian  civilization 
without  feeling  called  upon  to  come  to  some 
kind  of  opinion  about  Him. 

Much  less  can  one  acquaint  himself  with 
Christian  biography  without  meeting  the 
query,  *^Who  is  thisl^'  Can  one  read  the  life 
of  Gladstone,  even  as  written  by  so  pro- 
nounced an  agnostic  as   Viscount  Morley, 

[128] 


PERSONALITY  OF  JESUS 

without  being  conscious  of  another  Person- 
ality to  whom  the  great  commoner  was  so  re- 
lated that  we  cannot  estimate  the  life  of  the 
statesman  without  reference  to  that  Other 
whose  disciple  he  professed  to  be?  In  the 
portico  of  Trinity  Church,  Boston,  they  have 
set  up  a  statue  of  Phillips  Brooks,  by  St. 
Gaudens.  Just  back  of  the  heroic  figure  of 
the  great  preacher  stands  another  figure,  in 
whose  face  we  recognize  the  features  of  the 
Christ  of  art.  It  is  impossible  to  account  for 
Phillips  Brooks,  for  the  sanity  and  sanctity 
of  his  life  and  the  pervasiveness  and  perma- 
nence of  his  influence,  without  reference  to 
that  Other.     ^'Who  is  thisr^ 

Not  only  does  the  question  confront  us, 
**Who  is  thisT^  but  it  is  speedily  followed 
by  a  peremptory  challenge,  **What  shall  I  do 
then  with  Jesus  which  is  called  Christ?"  We 
may  read  the  biographies  of  great  men  with 
the  keenest  interest  but  without  feeling  called 
upon  to  do  anything.  The  biographies  of 
Bismarck  and  Cavour  do  not  demand  any  act 
of  the  will  on  the  part  of  the  reader.     The 

[129] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

strange  thing  about  the  Gospels,  the  inex- 
plicable thing — unless  we  admit  the  super- 
natural character  of  the  central  Person  of  the 
books — ^is  that  they  demand  a  verdict.  The 
personality  of  Jesus  presents  a  moral  im- 
perative, **What  will  ye  do  with  Me?"  So, 
the  fact  of  Christ  lies  not  alone  in  the  realm 
of  history,  but  of  morals. 

Eeason  rejects  the  notion  that  four  men, 
not  of  the  learned  class,  dwellers  in  a  Eoman 
dependency,  remote  from  the  literary  influ- 
ences which  dominated  the  age,  held  it  within 
either  their  purpose  or  their  power  to  invent 
such  a  character  as  Jesus.  Had  the  evangel- 
ists been  dramatists,  creators  of  romance,  and 
had  they  been  capable  mentally  and  morally 
of  imagining  such  a  personality  as  Jesus,  they 
would  not  have  offered  Him  to  the  world  as 
the  Messiah.  He  was  altogether  unlike  the 
Man  the  Jews  expected ;  totally  dissimilar  to 
the  deliverer  the  Gentile  world  had  set  its 
hopes  upon.  Isaiah ^s  Wonderful-Counsellor 
and  Virgil 's  heaven-born  world  ruler  are  not 
unlike. 

[130] 


PERSONALITY  OF  JESUS 

Jesus  was  born  of  a  Jewish  mother.  His 
human  lineage  and  His  environment,  the  in- 
tellectual, social  and  religious  atmosphere  of 
His  childhood  and  youth,  all  conspired  to 
make  Him  a  typical  Jew  of  the  Augustan  age. 
But  something  defeated  that  conspiracy.  , 
There  is  nothing  in  Bethlehem,  Nazareth  or 
eJerusalem  to  account  for  the  fact  that  He  was 
not  a  typical  Jew  of  his  age,  or  of  any  other 
age.  Tolerant,  catholic,  cosmopolitan,  uni- 
versal. He  towers  above  his  contemporaries 
as  would  a  giant  sequoia ^  springing  out  of 
the  arid  soil  of  a  sagebrush  plain. 

Considered  as  to  the  magnitude  of  His 
plans,  which  included  the  conquest  of  the 
world;  as  to  the  method  by  which  He  pro- 
posed to  conquer  all  nations,  not  by  the  arm , 
of  power,  but  by  spiritual  agencies;  consid- 
ered as  to  the  union  in  Him  of  moral  faculties 
generally  regarded  as  absolutely  antagonistic, 
such  as  justice  and  benevolence,  power  and 
tenderness,  kingly  dignity  and  meek  humility, 
stainless  purity  and  abounding  sj^mpathy  for 
the  slaves  of  sin,  eagerness  for  the  coming 

[131] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  passionate  pa- 
tience to  await  the  widening  thoughts  of  men 
— considered  as  to  these,  the  character  of 
Jesus  is  as  unique  as  are  His  ideas.  '^  Ideas 
alone/'  says  Griffith  Thomas,  ** never  save 
and  inspire  lives;  they  must  have  a  per- 
sonality behind  them  to  give  them  reality, 
vitahty  and  dynamic.  A  disciple  is  more  than 
a  scholar,  an  inspiration  is  more  than  instruc- 
tion. Christ's  words  are  of  permanent  value 
because  of  His  person;  they  endure  because 
He  endures." 

Considered  as  to  the  claims  He  made  for 
Himself,  Jesus  stands  alone,  majestic  and  in- 
comparable. He  claimed  to  be  the  Messiah, 
but  in  this  He  was  not  alone.  There  have 
been  many  false  Messiahs.  What  is  more.  He 
claimed  to  be  the  Eedeemer  of  all  sinners,  the 
Master  of  all  good  servants,  the  Judge  of  all 
mankind.  He  suffered  Himself  to  be  called 
by  many  various  titles,  Eabbi,  Master,  Lord, 
but  the  name  He  most  frequently  applied  to 
Himself  was  Son  of  Man.  As  the  son  of 
Mary  He  belonged  and  still  belongs  to  the 

[132] 


PERSONALITY  OF  JESUS 

Jews.    But  as  the  Son  of  Man  He  belonged, 
and  belongs  forever,  to  humanity. 

"0  man's  best  man,  0  love's  best  love, 
0  perfect  life  in  perfect  labor  writ, 
0  all  men's  Comrade,  Servant,  King  or  Priest." 

It  was  given  to  no  other  great  religious 
teacher  to  foresee  the  extent  of  the  influence 
of  his  own  faith.  Buddha  never  dreamed  of 
being  the  object  of  the  adoration  of  millions. 
Mohammed  never  hoped  to  extend  his  con- 
quests beyond  the  desert  peoples.  But  Jesus 
was  serenely  confident  during  His  life,  and 
even  in  the  presence  of  death,  that  He  was 
founder  of  a  Kingdom  which  should  include 
all  other  kingdoms.  **The  deliberateness  of 
destiny*'  was  in  His  steps.  The  assurance  of 
eternity  was  in  His  promises.  Superiority  to 
time  and  space,  to  natural  and  artificial  bar- 
riers, to  national  and  international  boun- 
daries, to  principalities  and  powers,  to  things 
present  and  things  to  come,  was  in  His  soul 
who  said,  **I  .  .  .  will  draw  all  men  unto 
me*';  *'A11  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven 

[133] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 


and  in  earth.  ...  I  am  with  you  alway, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.''  The 
amazing  progress  of  the  Gospel  in  mod- 
ern times  is  thus  revealed  as  no  surprise 
to  Him.  He  predicted  it  from  the  begin- 
ning. 

In  a  sense  in  which  it  is  not  true  of  any 
other  religion  it  is  true  of  Christianity  that 
its  Founder  is  still  a  vital  and  vitalizing  per- 
sonality among  men.  Jesus  lives  not  alone 
in  history  and  in  the  institutions  which  have 
flourished  where  the  influence  of  Christianity 
prevails,  but  in  the  consciousness  of  multi- 
tudes to  whom  His  name  is  not  merely  that  of 
a  hero  and  a  martyr  but  the  name  of  a  fa- 
miliar friend.  If  it  is  true,  as  Froude  says, 
that  no  man  in  modern  times  is  what  he 
would  have  been  if  Luther  had  not  lived,  it 
is  true  in  a  larger  measure  that  nothing  in 
modern  civilization  has  been  untouched  by  the 
spirit  of  Jesus.  Laws  and  customs  have  been 
modified,  the  accepted  code  of  ethics  has  been 
shaped,  benevolence  and  philanthropy  have 
been  inspired,  the  passion  for  popular  edu- 

[134] 


PERSONALITY  OF  JESUS 

cation  and  popular  government  has  been 
nourished,  standards  of  personal  and  family 
life  have  been  raised,  by  the  presence  in  the 
world  of  a  power  whose  source  is  in  no  other 
than  in  Him  Who  said,  ^^My  words  shall  not 
pass  away.''  ^'AVhere  the  word  of  a  king 
is,  there  is  power. ' '  But  there  is  among  men 
a  kind  of  power  which  cannot  be  spoken  of  in 
general  terms,  a  power  such  as  that  the 
laureate  had  in  mind  in  his  immortal  tribute 
to  Arthur  Hallam: 

And  Power  was  with  him  in  the  night, 
Which  makes  the  darkness  and  the  light, 
And  dwells  not  in  the  light  alone." 

It  is  a  restraining  power  when  human  na- 
ture needs  restraint,  when  imperious  and 
clamorous  passions  would  carry  us  away 
from  sanity  and  holiness;  a  constraining 
power  when  human  nature  needs  to  be  roused 
from  its  moral  lethargy.  This  power  Paul 
knew  who  said,  ^'The  love  of  Christ  con- 
straineth  us.''  Did  he  mean  our  love  for 
Christ,  or  Christ's  love  for  us?    Great  as  is 

[  135  ] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

the  place  these  thoughts  held  in  PauPs  mind, 
he  had  quite  another  thought  in  view — the 
love  of  Christ  in  us. 

The   benefactors   of   the    race   in   former 
periods  of  time —  ' 

"Bards,  prophets,  martyrs,  sages, 
The  noble  of  all  ages. 
Whose  deeds  fill  history's  pages, 
And  Time's  great  volume  make," 


these  we  venerate.  Hardly  can  it  be  said  of 
any  one  of  us,  even  the  most  sentimental,  that 
he  loves  Socrates  or  St.  Francis.  But  it  is 
said,  with  every  evidence  of  sincerity,  by  mul- 
titudes of  people,  of  every  degree  of  intelli- 
gence, and  of  every  type  of  temperament,  that 
they  love  Jesus.  They  sang  His  love  in  their 
secret  meetings  in  the  Catacombs.  The 
words,  *^Jesu  amor  mens,''  which  inspired 
the  hymn  below,  go  back  to  the  age  of  the 
martyrs  of  Nero  ^s  Eome : 

"In  this  dreary  dungeon,  I, 
Bound  in  chains  a  prisoner,  lie, 
But  my  Love  is  ever  nigh — 
'Jesus  is  my  Love.' 

[136] 


PERSONALITY  OF  JESUS 

"Friends  and  kindred  all  have  fled, 
Some  are  false  and  others  dead, 
But  this  One  of  whom  I  said, 
'Jesus  is  my  Love.' 

"Better  with  Him  in  the  gloom 
Of  this  dreary  dungeon  tomb. 
Than  without  in  palace  room — 
^Jesus  is  my  Love.' 

"Scant  my  clothing,  coarse  my  food. 
Vexed  am  I  with  treatment  rude. 
Yet,  though  lacking  eai'thly  good, 
'Jesus  is  my  Love.' 

et  .r  here  in  bonds  to  lie. 
Better  on  the  block  to  die. 
Than  my  faith  I  should  deny — 
'Jesus  is  my  Love.' " 

What  is  the  secret  of  this  persistent  idea 
that  Jesus  is  still  alive,  to  receive  our  decla- 
rations of  love  and,  in  return,  to  manifest  His 
love  to  us?  It  is  in  an  experience  of  fellow- 
ship, the  ground  of  which  is  in  the  realm  of 
consciousness,  a  realm  which  lies  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  scientific  or  historical  criticism. 

Jesus  promised  to  be  with  His  disciples  in 
all  ages.    The  Christian  Church  affirms  that 

[137] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

this  promise  has  been  verified.  Is  the  claim 
of  Christianity  in  this  respect  verifiable? 
Not  by  logic.  (It  is  John  Morley  who  says, 
^  ^  Mere  logic  as  a  finder  of  trnth  is  only  a  thin 
sour  wine,  and  not  an  acid.")  Not  by  mere 
ratiocination.  But  it  may  be  verified  in  a 
truly  scientific  way,  by  personal  experiment. 
Many  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  are  axiomatic. 
They  are  self-evidencing  to  the  heart,  as  light 
is  self-evidencing  to  the  eye,  or  as  sound  to 
the  ear.  Many  other  sayings  of  Jesus  are 
demonstrable.  Some  of  His  sayings  are 
neither  axiomatic  nor  provable,  but  rather  of 
the  nature  of  revelation.  They  are  mysteries 
which  only  the  great  hereafter  may  explain. 
But  certain  sayings  of  Jesus,  few  in  number 
yet  memorable  and  unique,  are  purely  experi- 
ential. They  are  such  as :  ^  ^  My  peace  I  give 
unto  you."  *'Come  unto  me  .  .  .  and  I  will 
give  you  rest. "  ^  ^  He  that  hath  my  command- 
ments, and  keepeth  them,  he  it  is  that  loveth 
me :  and  he  that  loveth  me  shall  be  loved  of 
my  Father,  and  I  will  love  him,  and  will  mani- 
fest myself  to  him." 

[138] 


PERSONALITY   OF  JESUS 

If  the  volume  of  testimony  alluded  to  in 
a  preceding  chapter  concerning  the  experi- 
ence of  new  birth  be  weighty  and  impressive, 
equally  so  is  the  testimony  of  the  ages  to  the 
truth  that  Jesus  lives  in  the  consciousness 
of  those  who  call  him  Lord.  The  late  Hugh 
Price  Hughes,  in  an  address  on  ^^The  Un- 
answerable Argument  for  Christianity,'^  once 
referred  to  three  distinguished  Englishmen 
of  his  day,  Michael  Faraday,  Robert  Brown- 
ing and  John  Bright,  as  convincing  witnesses 
to  the  truth  of  the  presence  of  Christ  in  hu- 
man consciousness.  But  his  argument  was 
the  more  cogent,  because  he  concluded  with 
these  words:  **Let  me  also,  in  all  humility. 
bear  my  personal  testimony.  The  experience 
of  which  I  speak  is  my  own  experience.  For 
thirty  years  I  have  lived  in  the  light  of  that 
great  revelation  of  God^s  love,  which  was 
given  to  me  when  I  was  a  schoolboy  in 
Wales."  Very  like  John  Bunyan^s  declara- 
tion :  *  ^  I  have  ventured  my  own  soul  upon  this 
truth,  and  were  all  your  souls  mine  own,  as 
my  own  soul  is,  I  would  venture  them  there.'' 

[139] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS  OF  JESUS 

The  marvel  of  all  this  is  not  so  much  that 
large  numbers  of  people  in  every  age  for  nine- 
teen centuries  should  cherish  such  thoughts, 
express  such  sentiments,  indulge  such  emo- 
tions, tenaciously  cling  to  such  convictions; 
the  wonder  is  that  He  who  is  the  object  of 
this  affection  should  have  foreseen  it,  pre- 
dicted it,  built  all  his  plans  upon  its  certain 
fulfillment.  The  Kingdom  Jesus  spoke  of  as 
His  Kingdom  lay,  and  still  lies,  primarily 
within  the  hearts  of  men.  It  is  an  empire  of 
love.  There  have  been  other  religions  with 
millions  of  adherents.  But  the  distinctive 
fact  in  His  religion  is  ^Hhe  continuous  and 
ubiquitous  activity  of  His  person.  Under  all 
its  forms,  in  all  its  periods,  and  through  all 
its  divisions,  the  one  principle  alike  of  reality 
and  unity  has  been  and  is  devotion  to  Him. 
He  is  the  Spirit  that  inhabits  all  the  churches, 
the  Law  that  rules  the  conscience  and  binds 
into  awed  and  obedient  reverence  the  saintly 
men  who  live  within  all  the  communions  that 
bear  His  name.'^ 

What  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  mat- 

[140] 


PERSONALITY  OF  JESUS 

ter?  Who  is  this?  ^Hiat  think  ye  of  Him? 
What  then  shall  we  do  with  Him?  ^'If  it  is 
not  superhuman  authority  that  speaks  to  us 
here,  it  is  surely  superhuman  arrogance.  .  .  . 
One  man  of  a  particular  race  and  age  cannot 
be  the  standard  for  all  men,  the  judge  of  all 
men,  of  all  ages  and  races,  the  goal  of  human 
moral  development,  unless  he  is  something 
more  than  one  man  among  many/'  If  He  be 
that  Something  More,  what  else  can  He  be 
than  what  the  Church  unites  to  call  Him,  ^  ^  the 
Word  of  God  Incarnate  '^ ?  And  if  He  be  that, 
then  all  the  mystery  is  clear,  the  mystery  of 
His  perpetual  power  and  of  the  world's  in- 
creasing interest  in  Him.  God  has  spoken. 
**  Infinite  silence  breaks  into  the  spray  of  hu- 
man speech  upon  these  earthly  shores. '^  If 
He  be  that,  we  know  both  how  human  is  the 
heart  of  God,  and  how  divine  may  be  the  life 
of  man.  Nay,  rather  being  that,  the  riddle 
of  the  universe  is  solved  and  now  we  know 
that  in  the  labyrinth  of  life  there  dwells  no 
monster  to  devour,  but,  at  the  beginning  and 
end  of  every  process  of  human  development, 

[141] 


THE   DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 

individual  and  social,  is  One  whose  purpose  is 
to  make  us  perfect  in  Him. 

The  words  with  which  these  studies  close 
are  written  as  we  enter  the  Advent  season. 
The  stars  that  shower  their  silver  on  the  earth 
to-night  bear  us  in  memory  back  to  Bethle- 
hem. The  bells  across  the  snow,  the  trees 
that  blossom  in  our  homes  with  joy  for  little 
children's  eyes,  the  gracious  greetings  sent 
from  friend  to  friend,  are  all  symbolic  of  the 
gifts  he  brought,  and  of  that  gift  supreme, 
Himself.  We  know  that  He  was  helpless 
Babe,  and  reverent  Child ;  that  He  was  Youth 
obedient  to  the  yoke  of  discipline  and  toil; 
that  He  was  perfect  Man  and  that  there  dwelt 
in  Him  ^'the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily''; 
that  He  who  came  from  God  returned  to  God, 
our  Elder  Brother  still,  and  that  He  ever  lives 
on  high.  Not  for  us  now  are  opened  heavens 
and  angels'  song,  but  is  it  nothing  that  we 
have  His  peace.  His  love  of  peace,  His  faith 
in  things  unseen.  His  interest  in  all  mankind. 
His  sympathy  for  those  who  suffer  and  His 
pity  for  the  weakf 

[142] 


PERSONALITY   OF  JESUS 

Alice  MeynelFs  tribute  to  Jesus  in  her 
poem  called  ^* Christ  in  the  Universe'^  is  such 
as  is  deserved  by  none  other  than  the  Lord  of 
all  worlds. 

With  the  ambiguous  earth 
His  dealings  have  been  told  us;    these  abide; 
The  signal  to  a  maid,  the  human  birth, 
The  lesson,  and  the  Young  Man  crucified. 

But  not  a  star  of  all 
The  unimaginable  stars  has  heard 
How  He  administered  this  terrestrial  ball; 
Our  race  have  kept  their  Lord's  entrusted  word. 

Of  those  earth-visiting  feet 
None  knows  the  secret,  cherished,  perilous — 
The  terrible,  shamefast,  frightened,  whispered,  sweet 
Heart-shattering  secret  of  His  way  with  us. 

No  planet  knows  that  this 
Our  planet,  carrying  land  and  wave. 
Love  and  life  multiplied,  and  pain  and  bliss, 
Bears  as  chief  treasure  one  forsaken  grave. 

Nor  in  our  little  day 
May  His  devices  with  the  heavens  be  guessed, 
His  pilgrimage  to  thread  the  Milky  Way, 
Or  His  bestowals  there  be  manifest. 

But  in  the  eternities 
Doubtless  we  shall  compare  together,  hear 
A  million  alien  gospels,  in  what  guise 
He  walked  the  Pleiades,  the  Lyre,  the  Bear. 

[  H3  ] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 


0,  be  prepared,  my  soul! 
To  read  the  inconceivable,  to  scan 
The  million  forms  of  God  those  stars  unroll 
When  in  our  turn  we  show  to  them — a  Man. 


[144] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Alexander,  AVilliam,  Primary  Convictions. 
Barrows,  John  H.,  Clmstianity  the  World  Religion. 
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Brooks,  Phillips,  The  Influence  of  Jesus. 
Bushnell,  Horace,  The  Character  of  Christ. 
COE,  George  A.,  The  Spiritual  Life. 
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Dale,  R.  W.,  Fellowship  with  Christ. 
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Messiah. 
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Theology. 
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Forsyth,  P.  T.,  The  Person  and  Place  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Gordon,  G.  A.,  The  Christ  of  To-Day. 
HiLLis,  N.  D.,  The  Influence  of  Christ  in  Modern  Life. 
HORTON,  R.  F.,  My  Belief. 
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Hughes^  Hugh  Price,  Social  Christianity. 
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[147] 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  IDEAS   OF  JESUS 


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[148] 


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